Tales of Days Past
by The Wheezing Dragon
Summary: Rivals become allies as a mysterious warlock lays waste to the domain of Heylin master Chase Young. Neither the bravest of Dragons nor an unlikely Heylin apprentice may survive a tangle with the cruelty and treachery of Hannibal. Alternate universe; warning for over-the-top violence, gore, and torture.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

It had been many years since the courtyard had been in a state of true serenity, and even now in the approaching dusk, the atmosphere seemed more saturated than ever with unease. Heavy rain from the past few nights had left the delicate plants of the gardens limp but incredibly verdant and bright beneath the waning sunlight, and the stones of the intricate fountains and winding pathways remained cold and steely gray. While the garden, itself, was not necessarily a somber picture, it was not a pleasant reminder to see what lay at the far North end, mostly shrouded by a vivid overgrowth of heavenly bamboo.

This is where the master and keeper of the Temple cautiously made his way, making soft tapping noises upon the stepping stones with a gnarled wooden cane as he steadied his gait. At the end of the pathway was a simple, unadorned fountain, slowly and steadily flowing. While the waters of its lone tier glimmered with the last of the day's light, one could see that the pool actually generated its own unearthly, aqua glow, and it was this that let the master know that the spirit who resided here still had troubles to conclude.

Upon reaching the small bench just in front of the fountain, he swept the short train of his blue robes in front of him to cover his sandal-clad feet, then tapped with his cane at the last stepping stone.

"If I may have a word," he said, though he did not expect the spirit to answer right away.

As the last of the sunlight dwindled and night fell, the fountain's single pool rippled, shifted, and took on a most ethereal form. It rose in the shape of a flowing tendril at first, then sprouted suggestions of draconic features: horns, pointed ears, and scalloped plates trailing down from the nape of its "neck" down to its tail, which receded back into the now considerably smaller puddle in the stony tier. This creature now regarded the master with two glittering, turquoise eyes, and leaned forward from out of the shallow dish that held it off the ground. As it gathered energy in its waving body to speak, its most distinctive features presently lit up on its forehead—nine golden dots, arranged in a square formation.

"Master Fung," the entity spoke at length, the youth in its voice hardly fitting its eldritch appearance. It lowered its head and closed its eyes in respect.

"I have some news, young monk," the elder paused, as though he could not quite put the words together at first. "Your fellow warriors in training… have decided, after all, to journey to the mountains. There, they will—"

"T-they have? But they will not be able to vanquish the evil without me! How do they expect to even fight properly?"

Not in the least bit annoyed at the interruption, Fung continued; the water dragon had been known for emotional outbursts. At least, in its previous form, it had been.

"Keep in mind that, just as it is never too late for one to realize his or her own true strength, it is never too late to learn a lesson in humility, young monk. The remaining Wu Dai Warriors will continue where you left off… Bringing honor to our temple and home in all that they do to combat the Heylin, and bringing peace to your spirit. To return honor to them, you must have faith that they can be strong without you."

The water dragon lowered its head further, its eyes and dots dimming.

"This does not mean that you are any less of a worthy fighter; you simply cannot follow them in your current state," the master spoke again, then allowed for a moment for his words to register with his student.

"I… I understand, Master."

"Try not to think on this as a hardship, being separated from your body. This will be the ultimate lesson in patience for you, and the warriors' journey, the ultimate test in courage and strength."

The spirit, bowed, as only a watery serpent could bow, and receded further into its reservoir before completely losing shape and resuming the form of a pool.

"I await their safe return," it said, the golden dots dimming and dying out as it assumed its resting shape.

With that, the master quit his bench, taking his cane in hand, and followed the pathway out of the courtyard. As he followed the stony inlays amid the grass, a slight shift in the atmosphere caught his attention. Looking out the garden's northwestern gate, he noted the faintest layer of mist beginning to appear in the absence of sunlight, shrouding the paths that led away from the temple, and off into the hills and valleys.

Perhaps it was just his innate concern for his youngest students, but there was far more to this darkness of the distant mountains than met the eye.


	2. Chapter 1

**One**

High in the northwestern corner of Henan, one could make out the dark angles of the mountains, bordered dim blue by the light of the nighttime sky. The stars that could be seen were few and were half hidden under the heavy clouds of the highlands. The air would have been pleasant at this time, but something sinister had pervaded the summer wind, and had been carried all the way from an obscure section on the border of the Henan Province and Shanxi. As for the source of the discord, one would need to be familiar with the geographical anomaly situated somewhere past the ragged outlines of the mountains beyond.

A stony tower, three hundred feet tall and the color of iron, stood like a splinter in the back of a great beast along the range. Even in the shadows cast by the many crags and overhanging cliffs, any brave passersby could see the structure by its yawning maw of an entrance, which emitted an unsettling orange glow. While the outside of the tower was harshly juxtaposed enough with its otherwise peaceful mountain home, the inside was even stranger.

It would have been a happy sight for a forlorn traveler on any other night, even if the inside were completely vacated. Its smooth marble floors, lily ponds, white pillars, and winding staircases were fit for a palace, and its dining room fit for an army of at least a hundred. At first glance, the only imminent threat was the strange abundance of large jungle cats, which seemed to be forever on standby, lounging about on stone furniture, and eating of the leftovers of a dinner from the evening before. But even wild animals were not as unnerving a sight as what lay in the combat court, if one were compelled to explore the tower further.

Toward the center of the structure, and through an intricately carved set of double doors, a vast reddish floor in the shape of a fat crescent moon fanned outwards, its convex side ending with a black wall with carved out windows, filled in with chaotically patterned yellow and green stained glass. There was no other earthly light source within the chamber than the weak starlight from through the glass, yet it stayed alight, and brightly enough so that one could see many aggressively poised figures. Were the notion of a brutal battle about to begin not enough to chase off any witnesses, then the fight's chief instigator certainly would have been.

It was not simply that the creature was a nightmarish sight to behold; it was the air he had about him that implied he was capable of the unspeakable. Though the combatants may not have known this, they were well aware that this was no ordinary interloper—and one of them in particular knew true evil when he saw it. He and a slim whippet of a boy, who had stayed practically pasted to his side, were not especially well equipped to fight such a monstrous man, but they were prepared to face him if escape was not an option. Well, at least, one of them was.

The more well-composed warrior sighed in exasperation, his reptilian eyes dimming as his apprentice yelped and retreated into his shadow at the sound of the aggressor's heavy footsteps. In wooden sandals, they sounded very much like clubs striking a walkway. Startling? Yes. Terrifying? No. The warrior was ready to chastise the boy for cowering, when their mutual opponent spoke, at last.

"It's been such a long time, kiddo," the man said in a low, slithering drawl. Yellow, iris-less eyes ringed in red leered at the two from a ragged gash through his large, straw hat. "My, oh my, has time been awfully kind to you. I wonder why." the entity chuckled sarcastically, showing rows of crooked, yellowed teeth, then reached out as if to brush a few strands of long black hair from his prey's face.

"That would be close enough," the youth retorted, slapping the hand away in warning. "It is rather disrespectful to intrude on my home and not even give me your name."

The monster now guffawed, chilling the blood of everyone in the room, especially that of the boy still hiding behind his master. "Don't you play dumb with me, you rug rat! I'm insulted that you wouldn't remember the man that made you who you are…"

There was an uncomfortable silence, then the shuffling of footsteps was heard as the remaining figures, two young men and one woman, on the opposite side of the room attempted to bolt for an escape through the main doors. But the instigator whirled around on one foot, and slammed down hard on the wedges of the sandals with such force to make the doors swing shut, leaving the fleeing trio skidding to a halt in terror.

"And _YOU._" The chilling man snapped at them in a voice that made their stomachs turn, "_You brats stay right where you are._ After all, I've got ya to thank for leadin' me all this way, so take a seat and enjoy the show." He whirled around again to face a considerably more shaken young master and his now silent shadow.

"I highly suggest leaving the Xiaolin out of this," the youth spoke slowly and smoothly, despite the welling sense of dread, and assumed more of a proper fighting stance, "If this is a matter among the Heylin, then let us keep it as such. Now, you will tell me who you are, or I'll make sure Jack here gets to spend the rest of the night cleaning your remains out of the grout."

"Well… Since you asked so nicely, kiddo, the name's Hannibal."

Everything went still for a brief moment, and the malevolent man smirked as though he had already won. Then, a flurry of silvery blades and bright red hair shot past the young master, followed by a cacophonic shriek of agony.

It all happened so fast, it was hard to tell what had happened right away, but the young master backed away as he saw his immense adversary on one knee, one hand against an unseen wound on his face. In his other hand, he held Jack, his apprentice, down against the floor by his throat.

At length, everyone in the room seemed to compose themselves; Jack, enough to start yelping and thrashing at being caught, and Hannibal, enough to wrench the boy's twin blades from his hands.

"Heh, heh, heh. I thought you were a spineless, little whelp from the looks of ya, but you've got guts," the monster smirked cruelly, apparently thoroughly delighted at getting on with the bloodshed, "Maybe we should see how much guts you've got."

"_Unhand him, demon!_" the dark-haired warrior rushed at the two of them, leapt forward, and managed a good two strikes to Hannibal's head, knocking away his hat.

The Xiaolin warriors, still trapped in the room, reacted on various levels at the sight of the wound. Two screamed in surprise, while another turned and promptly vomited. One of Jack's blades had claimed Hannibal's right eye.

This, however, did not phase the most seasoned of the fighters in the least. In fact, he grinned at his apprentice's handiwork before attempting a few more strikes at his foe, but he was promptly swatted aside like an insect. The resulting crash against the wall should have broken bones and knocked out teeth, but he managed to right himself with little effort, right as—

A sickening crunching sound pervaded the air, and bloodcurdling wails resounded throughout the tower. Hannibal cackled as the Xiaolin warriors awkwardly rushed over to stop him as he tore Jack's right arm free from his body. Crimson fluid sprayed across the floor, the dismembered limb thumped against the tiles, and the boy's hysterical cries rang through the room.

"_Master Young! HELP ME!_" the little redhead frantically thrashed and called out, tears streaming from his ruby eyes.

It made Hannibal laugh, and he proceeded to take another limb. "Think it's enough yet, Chase?" he cackled gleefully as he ripped Jack's left leg away in his massive hand.

The warrior's stomach lurched, both at the sight of his apprentice's anguish and at the sound of this… thing saying his name. "Y-you…" he stammered, his voice barely audible over the wailing. He tried desperately to move forward, but instead fell to his knees. "Let him go…"

Hannibal cocked his head at him, his single yellow eye and his gaping black socket locking onto his tiny slit pupils.

"I didn't think so," the demon replied cryptically. He then dropped Jack for but a moment, letting his body splash into a syrupy, vermilion puddle. With both free hands raised over his head, he conjured what appeared to be a ball of sparking, fizzing, violet light, and launched it at the Heylin master.

The ball hit its mark, dead center on Chase's stomach, and exploded with an ethereal scream on impact. The youth was sent flying once more against the wall, this time cracking the intricate stone work. He collapsed against the floor with a loud clunk, immediately followed by shrill gasping. The pain that ripped through his abdomen was unlike anything he had ever experienced before; it tore through him like hellfire and shook him like an earthquake, and its influence only became stronger the longer he lay wheezing and helpless. The worst part of all was that, no matter how much he willed himself to rise and fight, it was as though he had been completely cut off from his body. He could not move a muscle. He could only watch as the Xiaolin finally staggered over to their target.

These young combatants skidded to a stop at Hannibal's back, alerting the monster with the ghostly glow of their weapons. Now that they were this close to him, Chase could see how this thing practically dwarfed them; they looked so much stronger and fiercer from far away. Illuminated in unearthly light, their youthful faces were twisted in horror as their adversary turned to look at them.

"I thought I told you whippets to stay put," Hannibal growled as he rose to his feet. He stomped down hard on Jack's remaining limbs when he did, severing them with a loud squelch beneath his sandals' blunt wooden wedges.

Chase thought he heard the warriors attempt to reason with the monster over the sound of his apprentice's wails of suffering, but, whatever they said, they were almost immediately cut off by loud crackling and blasts of energy. The shapes of their bodies being flung away like rag-dolls grew fuzzy against the harsh, chaotic light of Hannibal's magic, and the room seemed to grow progressively dimmer and dimmer. The Heylin master now lay very still against the floor, his breathing shallow and ragged. Everything was melting into a sickening blur.

As he closed his eyes, he could only hear dying echoes of screams.


	3. Chapter 2

**Two**

The morning sun did not break through the clouds as early as it should have for summertime. Rather, it was around noon when its weak rays reached the gardens of the Xiaolin Temple, raising the youngest of its monks from a deep slumber in his fountain. Slowly taking on his astral form, he raised his small, horned head from the pool and peered about the bright, viridian courtyard.

The first thing he noticed was that his master had not come to wake him, but this could have been easily dismissed; there was always something important for the elders of the Temple to attend to. However, the next thing he noticed made him wish that he were still dreaming.

Entering through one of the archways on the furthest end of the garden, three distinct shapes came racing through the court towards the fountain, heading for the back doors into the temple. The Wu Dai Warriors had returned! But, why so soon? The monk had, indeed, been worried for his friends for the few days they had been gone, but something was very wrong with this picture. It was alarming enough that they had not returned in their usual fashion – descending upon the courtyard atop their dragon guardian – but, as they passed him, the watery sprite nearly dissolved into a puddle in horror.

The other monks neared the doors, panting, shaking, and covered in blood. The tallest of them, a blond American boy, practically dragged along one of his fellow warriors, apparently and understandably on the verge of collapsing. It was the lone female of the group that approached the fountain before scrambling inside, and she regarded her friend briefly with wide, terrified blue eyes before scooping him out of the fountain with a canteen from her satchel.

"No questions right now, Omi," she said in a low, shaky voice, "We just need help healing up."

Everything went dark for a moment as the girl closed the canteen lid, and soon, the water dragon was jostled about considerably as he was whisked through the temple. After a few minutes of listening to loud shuffling and panicked whispers, he found himself being poured into a shallow bowl on a dark, tiled floor.

Omi resumed his serpentine form once again as he looked about the room, and immediately recognized it as the monks' living quarters. To his left, he could see a row of mats and thin barriers perpendicular to the wall – the one furthest from him being vacated, save for some scrolls in a corner.

He quickly turned his attention to what was directly in front of him, however, to look over the exhausted face of the oldest of the Wu Dai Warriors. Everything from his sneakers to his dark brown hair was heavily splattered with deep red, and his green eyes appeared dim and sunken as he glanced at the bowl of water beside him.

"Raimundo! What ha—" the dragon started.

"Keep your voice down," the boy held a hand up to silence him.

"We'll tell ya ev'rything in a minute," the one towering fellow said from over in a corner. He was gingerly picking bits and pieces of something out of his thick, yellow hair.

"Sorry…" Omi lowered his voice, and got to work healing his considerably more traumatized friend.

With wavering liquid arms, he reached out and touched Raimundo's forehead, while steadily generating a ball of white light within himself. In his mortal form, this would not have simply been a convoluted method of analysis; it would have been impossible. But in his current state, this allowed for a nearly crystal clear visual of his friend's flow of chi. Even amid a flurry of terrifying and confusing imagery tearing around in the boy's mind, he was able to detect the weak, thready pulse of his heart, and he could feel his energy steadily waning. The water dragon resisted the strong urge to recoil at Raimundo's memories, but he could not waste any more time in finding his injury. He closed his eyes, concentrated hard, and listened intently for the tiniest of rushing sounds. At length, he sensed a sharp drop in pressure and temperature towards the boy's core.

The wound was long and ragged, but it could not be seen from the outside. From the way Omi could see it, he could only describe it as a massive gap in what would have been his friend's sea of chi. It was going to take almost all of his own energy to close it up, but he was resolved to do his best.

The remaining Wu Dai Warriors sat down beside the water bowl, watching closely as the orb of white light dissipated from within the dragon and traveled down his arms. This ethereal force illuminated the wounded monk's body briefly, shining strongly across his stomach in a jagged line. When the light dimmed, so did the dots on the water dragon's forehead, and Omi collapsed in a tiny pool in his bowl.

"The worst is over," he murmured, as only a puddle could murmur. "I must… collect myself before I am able to heal the rest of you."

"Actually, that was it," Raimundo said, rising slowly into a sitting position.

"_What?_" Omi practically shouted, right before being shushed by his friends, "Kimiko, Clay, what are you talking about? You have been massacred!" he whispered harshly.

"This ain't ours, li'l' buddy," the boy named Clay gravely referred to the blood he was still wiping off of his face.

"We'll tell you what happened," the girl, Kimiko said. Her eyes darted around the room worriedly, "Just keep quiet. If Master Fung sees us looking like roadkill, he won't let us outside again until we're in our nineties!"

x

It was safe to say that it had been a strange couple of days. It was more worrying than strange, however, when a teacher could not find a trace of his students.

Master Fung had stationed himself in the temple's sanctuary for the time being, partly to clear his mind, but mostly to tend to his oldest friend. Previously, there had only been a notion that something wicked was brewing in the northwest, but now the goings on about the Temple confirmed it. The lack of communication between the master and his monks was deeply concerning, as was the illness that had so abruptly taken the temple's guardian dragon, Dojo.

The sight of the tiny serpent in such a condition left Fung hanging his head in sadness. His once shining green scales were dull and flaking off in jagged patches, and the tufts of red fur on his tail and chin were almost completely gone and faded. The last time he had had his eyes open long enough for the master to examine him, they had been ringed with deep violet gunk. Needless to say, this had rendered the poor beast incapable of seeing, let alone flying or shape-shifting properly.

Fung now pushed a shallow dish of herbal water towards his friend, encouraging him to get at least some of his strength back. The dragon responded with a wheeze.

"No, thanks," he said, his voice sounding oddly louder than his terrible state implied. "Shouldn't ya be keeping an eye out for those kids?"

"As much as I wish to wait for my warriors, the Elders will be watching for their return." Fung replied.

"Either that – or you'd immediately miss ungluing my eyelids every hour on the hour," Dojo chortled, making his friend smile in relief for a brief moment.

"It would appear you are on your way to recovery, Kononocho," he said, "But I am not certain how long it will be before you can aid the warriors again."

In the past, Fung and his monks had witnessed their dragon suffer disfiguring allergic reactions, always signaling the beginning of one of their many quests. The last time they had seen something so vile befall the beast was when the Crystal Glasses had revealed themselves, but, even then, Dojo had been able to transport them safely all the way to Russia.

"I don't suppose that any Wu have activated recently, have they?" Fung asked, now that he thought about it.

"Oh, believe me, I would've known. There aren't any powerful enough left to do something like this," the dragon said hoarsely as he scratched away a rather large section of his scales with a stubby limb. "But I know what you mean… Ten years of sniffin' 'em out, and we didn't get 'em all. Makes you wonder."

The master now looked at him rather despondently. Indeed, he was wondering. If neither poison nor Shen Gong Wu had crippled the dragon, then what sorcery could have?

Further investigation would have to wait until that evening, however. There was a brief sound of commotion outside, followed shortly by the sound of familiar voices going down the hall…


	4. Chapter 3

**Three**

The afterlife seemed incredibly boring, at first. The world had been boiled down to a single stone tunnel, complete with stalactites and stalagmites, and a variety of scattered animal bones. For the longest time, it seemed like nothing moved, save for some overgrown beetles, and nothing made any noise except for the wind just outside.

Well, if he was really dead, then he was right where he belonged, Jack reasoned as he pushed himself into a sitting position. Being dead would also explain why all his limbs were back, he noted, and, after rotating them one by one he was convinced he was not imagining things. However, he thought, if he really was where he thought he was, he should at least be in unbearable agony, or suffering some sort of unspeakable torture worse than anything he had experienced in life.

A quick glance around the cavern revealed nothing particularly threatening. Even a rat feasting on some mystery meat seemed nowhere nearly horrendous as the greeting the boy had expected. He exhaled deeply, not really relieved but not really frightened, either. This was almost… disappointing.

But, no sooner had he placed his bare feet to the icy cave floor than a voice sounded in his ears. It was a sound that was felt more than heard, and it sent ripples of electricity down his spine, made his skin crawl, and effectively sent him leaping into the air, shrieking in terror.

The reverberation of alien words within his mind stayed with him long after the echoes of his cry had subsided, and the thought of an unseen interloper within the cavern did nothing to calm his now jangling nerves and racing heart. Jack stood perfectly still for a moment, wide, red eyes flicking back and forth, searching for the voice's owner. What little bravery he had quickly crumbled, though, and he scampered to a corner within the chamber that appeared to be littered with less filth and fewer bones than the rest, shivering and muttering.

So much for disappointment; he had wound up in hell, after all. Still frantically scanning the room, the lad shuffled about on the stony floor on his bare feet, trying to keep quiet. At length, however, he heard the voice again, only this time, the enunciation of the words was clear. They were no less foreign to him, but he could hear them more distinctly than before:

"Búyáo pá."

Jack screamed again and rolled over sideways, ducking behind a pile of animal skeletons. His skills in hiding had apparently not improved over the years, as the voice did not leave. In fact, it grew stronger; the sheer intensity of its presence rattling the delicate ossicles in his skull. He was sure now that his still bounding pulse would give him away if his whimpering did not do so first.

It was only now that the boy noticed that his heart seemed to resonate with equal intensity as the voice in his head, thumping hard against his ribs from within. It took him a couple seconds more to realize that this was not a coincidence, and he had to force himself to slow and steady his breathing as the strange words were repeated to him over and over. The voice was not from someone else in the cave, nor was it originating in his head.

"What the—?" Jack began gingerly poking at his own chest through a huge rip in his black robes. To his horror, he came across a huge, mahogany scar, shaped much like a crescent moon. It began at his collarbone, ended just beneath his last left ribs, and glowed a faint cerulean towards its center. This was where he felt the voice coming from.

"Búyáo pá," it said again.

Shaken and terrified as he was at the moment, Jack could hear no malice in its tone.

"'K-kay…" he stammered, at length. "Pretend I have no idea what you're saying."

The voice responded with an audible sigh, and then rattled off a few long, incomprehensible phrases. However impossible it was to understand for the time being, the sound of this entity's dialect was incredibly familiar…

"I don't understand," Jack muttered, not entirely sure if this being understood him, at all, either. He thought it seemed pointless to even ask who, or what, it was and where it came from.

There was another loud sigh, followed by a sudden tightening and rattling within the boy's ribs. Raw, fizzing energy crept through Jack's veins, and he was almost certain he could see the same glow from his chest spreading to his limbs. He let out a weak gasp as his vision was presently flooded with the blue aura, blotting out his view of the bleak cavern, and replacing it with something rather soothing.

It was a meadow, green and bursting with life, with the clearest of sapphire skies overhead. The lad felt his nerves finally calming, and the strain of the electric energy roiling within him seemed to die down a bit. But the serenity did not last long, and the vision was shattered momentarily by something slamming into him and sending him flying. With a yelp, he frantically scrambled for footing, but ended up face down on the ground, wheezing and desperately trying to crawl away. He presently felt a pair of hands trying to pry something out of his own, and when he rolled over to see what it was, he froze.

While Jack was not surprised to see his former rival, the smallest of the Xiaolin monks, he was both amazed and terrified at the sight of the Wu he now held in his tiny hands. An oversized, purplish heart, still beating though its owner had long since gone, throbbed hideously against the monk's palm.

This was no vision; this was a memory. In an instant, though, it was over. The grim scenery of the cave was back, and all Jack was left with was a horrifying revelation as the creature within him spoke once more, this time, sharing a hint of its identity.

"Wǒ de míngzì shì Jong. Mala Mala Jong."

x

Master Young entered what was left of his indoor training court, huffing and wincing, clutching at the barely healed wound on his belly. His servants had bandaged him up fairly well, but they could not cure him of the searing agony that he had been left with. His hissed in pain as he walked through the rubble, which was still in the process of being cleared.

The ceiling was not completely collapsed, but a gaping hole revealed the night sky, starless and inky black without a sign of morning to come. Many of the windows had been blown out, so that the wind blew in freely, scattering debris from the crumbled stone walls. What few lanterns were left attached to their respective hooks did little to relieve the gloom, and instead left corners of the large, dim room with eerie red lights barely cutting through the swirling veil of dust. Even the collective efforts from the stronghold servants did little to lift the master's spirits now.

Everywhere Chase looked, fierce young men and women toiled to repair the shattered remains of the chamber he had trained them in. He regarded them with flat, sunken eyes as they hauled sections of dashed brickwork away and laid new stones in its place. Much to his surprise, however, some of them had not expected to see him out of bed so soon, and rushed over to him, dropping whatever tools they were holding. Before they could even speak, their master readily reprimanded them.

"I thought I asked for someone to find the body," Chase glowered, but did not look at them. He, instead, looked down at the section of floor directly in front of him – at a sprawling, garnet stain.

"We… we have tried, Master," said a girl in an animal-skin robe, "Hannibal must've—"

"Do not mention his name," he glanced up at her as he cut her off, and he could see that his sudden eye contact made her shudder. "And you will try again. _All_ of you will try again," he raised his voice and looked about the room to make sure that the rest of the lot heard him.

When he noticed that his command earned him several confused stares, he exhaled deeply, and tried to explain.

"It is crucial to give a proper burial to one who has been slain suddenly and painfully, so that the spirit can be at peace," he said, "I want you, yes, _all_ of you, to stop what you are doing and find him now… And immediately return to me when you do."

The servants looked at one another briefly, then bowed nervously to Chase and left. A great chorus of growling and snarling filled the room momentarily, as some of the men and women changed their shape, dropping to all fours as they resumed their cursed forms – huge, sleek jaguars and tigers. The large felines padded their way past their master as they exited the demolished court, and those who remained as humans took up spears and cutlasses from the remaining weapon rack in the room.

Chase looked at them somberly before seating himself on a piece of the crumbled wall in front of the blood stain on the floor. It was not until he was certain his servants were out of earshot that he put his hands to his face, blocking out his own vision.

"_Stupid, stupid, stupid boy…_" he murmured into his palms. "_Why did you charge?_"

He dared not open his eyes right now, lest he be greeted with a horrible apparition of his apprentice upon the reddened tiles before him.

_That useless creature. That ignorant fool,_ Chase thought. Had all his own efforts been for naught? Had he not taught the boy to control himself? True, the Heylin master had never expected to find a berserker beneath the guise of such a fragile and spineless creature – much less come to realize that his own training had not made the boy strong as he had hoped.

But Jack was gone now, and Chase had never felt such disillusionment in all his years. He knew the searing wound on his belly would heal, of course, just as he knew he would keep on living, never aging a day.

It was after what felt like hours of sitting, isolated in the wreck of the training court that the immortal grasped that no muttering or meditation would bring the boy back. He reasoned that, as it went with every plan the Xiaolin whelps or some unsavory sidekick had managed to overthrow, there would be a way to endure this failure. He huffed heavily, pushed his thick bangs back, and dared himself to look where his apprentice had been butchered – and what he saw startled him.

There was a footprint. Why he had not seen this when he had awoken and went to look for Jack, he could not say. But there it was. He got down from the chunk of rubble, and knelt to look closer. The print was large – much too large for Jack, though it would have made no sense for there to be a print from him when he had obviously been incapacitated. And yet, it could not have been from Hannibal, either; the shoe-print was completely different from that of a stilted sandal. The longer Chase looked at the print, the more he realized that it was not from any of the Xiaolin warriors – their body types varied, indeed, but they varied even more so from whoever, or whatever, had left this clue.

Chase now reached a rather chilling conclusion, and that was putting it lightly. Someone, an unseen fifth interloper, had snuck in after Hannibal had sated his thirst for blood, and carried off his apprentice's corpse. The very thought was enough to make one sick, but Chase began to reel from within, his pain reawakened on an entirely different level from his physical wounds, mushrooming from its initial wave of sadness to brutal emotional torment.

_Who would take his apprentice? Why?_

He had little time left to wonder to himself, however, as one of his warriors presently returned to the court, panting and out of breath. The master glanced up at the young woman as she practically skidded to a halt at his side, clutching something in her gauntlets. When Chase realized what it was, his stomach lurched.

"I'm so sorry, master," she said to him slowly, "We will keep searching if you wish, but –I don't think we'll find all of him."

"You must continue." he frowned, barely stifling a groan as he took his apprentice's arm from the girl.

As soon as she was out of his sight again, he cradled the boy's severed limb to his armored chest, drawing in deep breaths and exhaling through his fanged maw, his wound aching and burning more fiercely than before.

x

It was not that Jack would have rather been dead than be spoken to by this ominous entity; there was no doubt that he did not look forward to what lay for him beyond the grave. It was just that he was hoping to have not come back to life to find the most dangerous Shen Gong Wu he could think of stuck in his chest. He stumbled blindly now, huffing and muttering deliriously as he desperately tried to pull the thing out from under his sternum, chunks of colorless flesh flying everywhere and littering the cave floor. Needless to say, the Heart of Jong, as it was called, kept hissing sternly in its native tongue, no doubt chastising him for allowing this atrocity to happen.

"Look, just shut up for a minute!" he shrieked as he dug his nails into his ribs. The resulting dull pain was not enough to stop him as he clawed open what scant muscle and flesh he had left shielding the Heart, "You think I like havin' you arou—"

He presently went silent as he watched the impossible occur… something equally unbelievable as having a Shen Gong Wu speak to him… The new, ragged hole in his chest began to close, slowly at first, and then rapidly, sealing the Heart inside him again with a sickening noise, until there was nothing but a tiny sliver of a scar as evidence to his wound.

"Wh—" he began as he sank to his quivering knees in disbelief, and the Heart made an unhappy gurgling noise in return. It almost sounded like an aggravated sigh.

Without even waiting to hear an explanation, Jack came to the horrific conclusion that this Wu was the only reason he had arms and legs after he could clearly recall being completely dismembered. Furthermore, it was the only reason he was alive. But, just as quickly as he realized this, a more horrifying possibility arose in his already barely-collected mind.

"So… if you're the only thing that's holdin' me together… how did you get stuck in there?"

The Heart huffed and gurgled again, but otherwise made no attempt at an explanation. It had apparently given up on trying to converse, for obvious reasons aside from the language barrier and the fact that its host was the intellectual equivalent of a child. There simply was no logical explanation.

At length, amid the thundering beats and swishing sounds within his rail-thin thorax, the boy was able to calm his thoughts. He was not going to get any further answers anytime soon. Not unless he ventured out to find them. Whether or not he was actually dead, how the Heart was keeping him alive, why it had even been placed in him in the first place, whether his master Chase was still alive… All of these were mysteries that he desperately needed to get to the bottom of.

He presently took a deep breath, rose to his feet once more, and took his first slow, trembling steps outside of the cavern and into the pallid light.


	5. Chapter 4

**Four**

With all the caution they could muster, the Wu Dai Warriors were able to venture outside the Temple walls once more without alerting the Master or any of the elders. It was quite a feat, needless to say, now that the three of them that had legs to walk on had managed to empty a wooden tub of reeking, bloody bath water down the hill and trundle it back again. It was an even greater wonder that no one noticed the three older warriors carting off the youngest one in a canteen, racing down the steps from the Temple and off into the highlands around Mount Song.  
>Well, either no one noticed, or no one seriously believed that these youngsters had come home after a brutal defeat only to go back and finish what they had started.<p>

"But why? Why must we go back?" Omi could be heard faintly gurgling from the canteen clipped to Kimiko's satchel. "Did everything that just happened pass over your brains like so many ill-thrown daggers? You wer—"

"Zip it!" the young woman snapped in a harsh whisper. "We're not quite off the grounds yet!"

"And I think ya mean, 'did it fly over our heads?'" Clay corrected the watery sprite, audibly huffing and wiping beads of sweat from his forehead as he remembered. "Because no. I don't think I'm ever gonna get those… images _outta_ my head. But I know what ya mean, li'l' man. We're goin' back to challenge Chase one last time, get 'im to put ya back in your real body, 'n' we'll call it a truce."

"We're not goin' back to Chase's mountains just yet, anyway," Raimundo butted in. He was far behind the others on the stairs, but was rapidly approaching them.

Kimiko and Clay practically spun around on their heels, and Omi poked his horned head out of the canteen to scold him.

"Where were _you_?"

"Spying. A little," he replied. It took everyone a moment to realize that he carried not one, but two backpacks. He now set them both on the ground as he reached the bottom of the steps.

"I thought perhaps I had not healed you well enough, after all," Omi frowned, "What were you spying for? And… what did you bring?"

The older boy paused, hanging his head as if he was not certain what was the best way to go about this, "Look, Dojo's still not healed up enough to fly. While the rest of you guys were gettin' cleaned up and callin' it a day, I snuck into the archives to get some things and listen in on Master Fung. We were wrong to go all the way to the mountains without some help."

"What the - do you mean, '_help?'_" Kimiko almost shrieked, her blue eyes flashing suddenly with anger, "There's no one in that Temple well enough to help us take on Chase _and_ that thing… Whatever he was… And even if we somehow got Dojo to fly again, everyone would know it would be us taking him!" She was almost immediately calmed as Clay set his rough hand on her shoulder.

"Just take it easy," the blond said to her before turning to Raimundo again, "Why _would_ you risk it, bud? Snaggin' some extra reading material's not exactly on our agenda—"

Raimundo now threw the particularly heavy backpack, and the cobbled ground was presently showered with familiar, glittering shapes; gold and black artifacts emblazoned with various stones, motifs, and carvings glowed back up at the warriors with unearthly energy. Even now, Raimundo brandished one, a shimmering, dark cloth which he slung over his shoulder in the same fashion a muscle-head would wield a used sweater towel after a workout.

"Like I said," he glowered at Kimiko, "We were wrong to go without help."

"But why would you steal _all the Shen Gong Wu?_" she hissed, her long, black hair now twisting and curling, tiny blue flames flicking out from underneath.

"Everyone will know you returned!" Omi almost wailed.

"Just hear me out!" Raimundo barked. "Our Wu Dai Weapons were barely enough to stun that freak, Hannibal, and we only got away because Chase's band of merry jungle cats jumped him!"

Everyone suddenly looked very glum. It was true; it was impossible to get the images of that last fight out of their heads.

"So… why do think the Wu will help?" Clay regarded his friend with a sad stare.

"It's not just the Wu we'll be needing," Raimundo continued, now fishing for another item in his pocket. "We're gonna need Dojo flying again." He retrieved a single faded scale from their dragon friend in question, showing the others how it seemed sapped of its former vivid color and magic.

"I don't believe this," Kimiko shook her head, "You're crazy, Rai. You always wanna do things your way, and you don't care who doesn't wanna get dragged along!"

"Don't tell me you don't remember what Hannibal said to us," the boy said, and everyone went completely silent. He let the gravity of his words sink in for a moment longer before explaining, "He thanked us. For leading him to Chase."

"W-we… went mostly on foot. Oh, my…" Clay's cerulean eyes went wide in horror. "Raimundo, wait a minute! What're ya sayin'?"

"He followed us," Raimundo said. It was becoming more apparent that he had been listening in on something far darker than they had all anticipated. "And someone had to do somethin' to our fastest ride to make sure that he could keep up. Master Fung was goin' off about curses and poisons and telling the Temple elders to watch out for strangers on the grounds and all that. Doesn't that sound fishy enough?"

"Why would anyone go to all that trouble?" Kimiko's tone had now dropped to an alarmed whimper. "I mean, he seemed to have a pretty harsh grudge against Chase."

"And he was so willin' to make 'im squirm, he was on Jack like ugly on an ape. But why would he use us?" Clay attempted to assume a reassuring stance, holding one of Kimiko's hands, and bracing Omi's travelling vessel with his other hand. "And you think he poisoned Dojo?"

"I don't think. I _know_. It's not like we didn't see what he's capable of already," the brown-haired monk was starting to lose his cool façade; everyone could see his deep, green eyes welling with tears. "We were probably his best bet on finding Chase, since we're all so eager to beat him once and for all. The freak was probably sniffin' around the Temple for months. But that's not the worst of it."

"Wha—" everyone began.

"When I went to swipe some of the Wu, the door wasn't locked. Some of the Wu were missing, too," the boy knelt as he retrieved some of the glimmering artifacts, "The Heart of Jong and the Shard of Lightning were gone."

x

_My, my, but there is nothin' like bringin' Hell to earth…_

In the inky confines of his temporary hideout, Hannibal Roy grinned hideously as he drank again deeply, staining his already deep maroon face with crimson liquid. He continued to glut himself until the arm he sucked from was little more than a withered twig in black cloth. And then he cast it aside to a pile of broken, bleached bones, and switched to one of the legs he had toted with him.

_Well… There's nothin' like virgin's blood, either,_ he thought, and now audibly chortled to himself. Maybe a few more helpings and his right eye would grow back, but it would be difficult to stop feeding even afterwards, the boy was so sweet. _Shoulda taken the whole damn brat._

The demonic man thumbed at his slowly healing eye socket, feeling about for the developing pocket of thick vitreous fluid. Indeed, it was coming back, but touching it reignited a fury within him so suddenly that he presently snapped the little limb he was feeding on in half. Maybe he would have been able to drag that little pup back to make a full meal out of him… if a certain bunch of Xiaolin punks had not bothered to blast him and leave him vulnerable to Chase's minions. He would have been able to finish off Chase, at last, too; he would have made him burn. How he would have made him suffer! He had gotten by with his little curse long enough!

Either he was getting old and soft, or he was just that out of practice that a bunch of children had beaten him just last night. Hannibal seethed now, imagining all the ways he would handle Chase once he finally got his hands around his skinny, little throat. He let his thoughts stew for a moment as he proceeded to break the fragile severed limb with his thumbs and forefingers repeatedly, effectively turning it to ribbons, chunks, and eventually soup. He would make them all suffer… those interfering insects. With a huff, he ate the destroyed leg, and wolfed down the remaining one, blood spraying and squelching everywhere, sinking into the rotten floorboards and threadbare carpet.

It occurred to him, however, that he would not have to wait for long. After all, he had resources; many eyes and ears.

"Maybe we should call on our friend again, shouldn't we? He was so kind to set us loose," Hannibal peered up with his good eye to his silent comrade, who had been observing him.

A bird with a fearsome bill and stark, monochromatic feather patterns lowered its head from within the rafters before leaping down to its master's chair without a sound. It regarded the grotesque being with pinpoint yellow pupils in coal-black sclera.

"Why don't we… give the fella a call?" Hannibal nodded to his avian companion, who bowed in return.

As the creature shot out the open window into the thickening darkness, Hannibal licked his fingers clean, still torn between wrath and joy. Wrath, well, for obvious reasons… And joy, over simply getting to have a meal so sweet all to himself. But even his joy quickly dissipated, now realizing he would never taste something quite like the apprentice of legendary Master Young ever again.

"Oh, Jack. It's too bad that that's all there was to ya," he frowned, his reflection staring back at him from the glistening floor.


	6. Chapter 5

**Five**

Moving on the new legs was strange, at first, to say the least. Now that he was out in the light of the rising sun, Jack took note that his freshly regenerated flesh had the appearance of badly burned marshmallows, yet, amazingly enough, proved strong enough to support his weight and was able to stretch and bend seamlessly as he walked. As he plodded along through the lowlands and marshes, he began to mindlessly pick at his new scaly right arm with his new clawed left hand.

"_Tíngzhǐ._"

The Heart's words still escaped him, but Jack understood enough through the context alone, and he jumped about a foot in the air.

"_Yipe!_ _D-don't do that!_" he yelped, "It's just… I'm _pretty_ sure this isn't what skin is supposed to look like," he groaned sardonically as he tapped his scales again, resulting in a tiny clunking noise.

The Heart of Jong seemed to groan, as well, rattling the boy from within his ribs. It withheld its currently incomprehensible comments for some time more as they continued onward. However, it was not long before the Heart's host began to mutter in exasperation again.

"I'm getting the feeling we've been goin' in circles…" Jack glanced about at the soggy terrain he referred to.

As if it were not a chore enough to have to slog through wetlands with no map, no shoes, and no particular known destination but the proverbial _far-away-from-here_, a thick layer of fog had settled over the land, shrouding any footprints or possible paths with slowly whirling thin, gray clouds. Even the rising sun did nothing to really cut through the blanket of mist. By default, Jack began to worry. He had not been trained to get himself home; he had never had to leave it for so long.

He trudged about a little further, weaving in and out of water-logged shrubs, swatting away noisy insects, tripping over slimy, bloated amphibians, and haphazardly dancing through knee-deep puddles of murky liquid, all the while alternately yelping and grumbling. At last, when he came to a stop – mostly due to striking one of his clawed toes on a rock hidden deep in the mud – he barked angrily at the Heart of Jong, still unable to comprehend its criticism.

"Look, I'm sure whatever you have to say to me is _really important_," Jack intoned to the dimly glowing sector of his chest, face flushing deeply as he dropped down on one knee to have a better look at his foot, "But it would be nice if you would just _shut up so I can find my way back home!_"

As he ranted to the sentient Wu, he became more and more adamant. His anger manifested in words dripping with venom to an entity he was sure would not even understand him. That is, until he thought he felt a deep shuddering in his chest.

In an instant, the boy went pale – well, paler than usual – as an abrupt crushing pain blossomed from within his ribs. Sweat beaded across his forehead and ran down his spine, electricity crackled at every synapse he had, ceasing his malicious growling and, instead, eliciting agonized shrieks. Jack dropped to his knees, clutching his chest, gasping for air and crying out in surprise. It was not long before he noticed the pain subsiding as he gasped; each ragged inhale seemed to make it fade away. But now, the further the pain subsided, the redder the rings around his field of vision became, darkening and thickening until all he could see was a sea of vermilion and mahogany swirls and stripes.

Except it was not simply a jumble of red patterns, he noticed, now that the pain was gone. Eventually, he was able to make out the shape more clearly. It was a vision of the Heart of Jong again, but this was from extremely close up, and the grotesque Shen Gong Wu appeared to be attached to many dark, organic masses, suspended in thick, purplish fluid, and beating disgustingly.

_Oh, no… Not another one of these…_

Jack audibly whimpered as he shut his eyes, hoping that this would make the vision dissipate. But it did not; it only made the image of the Heart sharper and more vividly detailed, not having any extra visual intake to distract him. He could now see that the Wu was spouting tiny puffs of white flame from in between its striations and overlapping musculature as it beat, very slowly growing brighter and stronger. As the Heart spoke to him again, it was as though a spell had been cast, and he felt as though his eyelids had been glued together.

"_Búyáo pá_," said the Heart, its ventricles contracting as it spoke, resulting in vile squelching sounds in between its words. "It means 'do not be afraid.'"

"Wh-wh—" Jack's breathing hitched in his throat for a moment or two, and he began to feel a dull ache return to his chest. He panted a little, still keeping his eyes squeezed shut.

"Do not forget to breathe, or we will both perish," the Wu intoned.

It was now that the boy noticed something very strange. Two of the darker stripes across the Heart's burgundy, striated surface pointed towards one another and almost converged in a V-shape. They were textured differently from the other markings, which he assumed to be blood vessels and muscle, and each had a barely visible slit through them. These two slits now began to widen, and Jack had to work hard to keep his breathing under control to avoid any further agony.

A set of eyes gradually opened and stared back at the boy, making him pant and huff even harder. They were ringed in white, had black sclera, and had the brightest cerulean irises that Jack had ever seen. They had no discernible pupils, and, instead, shimmered with a fiery intensity that made the boy whimper again.

"Do not be afraid. And do not forget to breathe," the Heart instructed, and with that, it shut its eyes and left Jack in darkness again.

After a few seconds, the Heart's host realized that he was able to open his own eyes. The washed out landscape of mud puddles and gnarled, withering flora flooded his vision once again, and he rapidly scanned his surroundings, only to see that the fog still had not been lifted.

"Well, _dammit!_" he barked, "Don't be afraid? Then why the hell would you scare me like tha— Oh?"

There was a change in the atmosphere now that put Jack more on edge than before. He stopped moving altogether, his crimson eyes widening. In his silence, he listened very carefully for the humming of the insect swarms, for the occasional splash of a frog in the water… Nothing. Everything was silent now.

Another thing he noticed was that the fog had only grown thicker. In fact, it was as if a new layer of it were being spread over the marsh; a large draft of it quickly approached him, like a cloud in the shape of a tidal wave. Then another approached, and another… and with each wave of mist, Jack was certain he could feel a rumble in the earth, growing steadily stronger and stronger.

He tried desperately to brace himself, remembering vaguely what he had been trained for – how to jump, strike, evade – silently hoping the brutal tutelage he had endured under Master Young would help. No solid plan of attack came to mind, as the rumbling grew louder and stronger, and the boy shuddered, panicking, trying so hard to recollect something useful.

"Búyáo pá," the Heart of Jong intoned, rattling slightly, and Jack suddenly felt his limbs solidifying, burning and aching as a force far stronger than his own will took hold of them.

He deeply wished to run away, not that he would have been able to get home in these conditions, but his body would not allow him. Instead, he stood fiercely in place, with blackened, sinewy legs firmly planted in the mud, his scaly, dark arms outstretched in a Dragon stance, and with his countenance twisted in a horrified grimace.

Amid the nearly deafening rumbling, the boy managed to make out the sound of the Heart beating, slowly and steadily, despite how frightened its host was.

"Breathe," it commanded him.

He obeyed, inhaling the misty air deeply, and catalyzing the blue glow of his chest until it appeared as though an aqua flame were bursting from between his ribs. Just as he felt his entire thorax igniting, Jack noticed a blob of a shadow, bounding forth, bursting from the foggy shroud before him.

Upon impact, Jack did not feel his right wrist snapping backwards as his fist connected with the foreign creature's mushy bulk. It felt more like a blunt whack on his limb, as if it had been deadened already. But then he felt its full weight slam him backwards, sending him flying head over heels, face and feet alternately scraping through rock and mud until he was flipped over into a particularly deep bog. In a panic, he scrambled out of the mud, panting and wheezing, wondering why it was suddenly so difficult to move his right hand.

When he did look down, he promptly vomited into the wet grass next to him. Both bones of his forearm had been bent at such a sharp angle, their respective shards were now protruding through a jagged hole in his flesh, exposing nerves, veins, arteries and the like to the reeking muck he had just been waist-deep in.

"Ugh… ack! _Waaauuugh!_" he could not manage a sentence. Instead, he had to settle for ragged gasps and a scream of pain… right before it registered in his mind that he needed to move, immediately.

The Heart of Jong took hold of Jack's remaining good arm just in time to roll him out of the way of what appeared to be a giant banana slug – a huge, slimy, olive-colored mass that flopped down onto the spongy ground with enough force to break even more bones. The boy narrowly avoided it, but another close encounter revealed that this thing was attached to something else. This was just the creature's tail.

Jack continued to wail, glancing back and forth from his wound to the mist surrounding him, trying not to think of what else the monster might do to him.

"Just go away…" he sobbed now, a few tears of agony streaming down his pale face. "No more…"

"_Tíngzhǐ!_" the Heart scolded him. "Stop that!"

Taking control of Jack's good hand once more, the Wu seized the injured arm and harshly snapped the bones back into place, resulting in waterfalls of tears and earsplitting screams.

"Crying does nothing. Get up!"

When Jack did not obey, the Heart forced him up on his feet again, taking control of his legs and sending him forward to his enemy. As his already aching and shaking body lurched through the fog, Jack could see the monster's outline more clearly.

"No! Not towards it!" the boy cried out in protest, tears still blurring his vision.

It was simply immense; it was no wonder the ground shook at it hopped along. The thick, slimy form bounded along, its tail swinging about heavily, threatening to take out withered trees as it spun and hopped. Upon closer inspection, this thing resembled a half-metamorphosed tadpole – it had legs, but they were rather stubby, and did not seem to carry it far. As the beast turned, the eyes that sought its prey converged independently of one another on the little redhead racing toward it – all five of its eyes. The monster grinned hideously at Jack, and opened what appeared to be two mouths in its wide, flat head, one within the other, baring rows and rows of jagged, little teeth. It bellowed heavily, chasing away some of the fog layer and just barely hindering the boy's approach as he jumped.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, uncertain if he would be able to bear any more pain sustained from this fight, and screamed as he felt his left arm swinging against his will. There was a loud squishing sound, the monster moaned, and the wounded lad felt his hand sinking into something incredibly viscous and jelly-like. It became very difficult to withdraw his good arm, so he decided to open his eyes and see what was happening. He instantly wished that he had not.

His left hand was wrist deep in one of the creature's giant, green eyes, and deep purple gore began to spray everywhere as he tried to pull back. The eye, retinal cord and all, came out with a sickening slurping noise, resulting in the monster thrashing, roaring, and effectively hurdling Jack into the air. Howls of agony and a horrible racket of bubbling and grunting could be heard from below in the white-shrouded marsh as the boy came tumbling back down. He felt the Heart steady his legs for a good landing, but was still gripped with unshakable dread. And for good reason…

He could see the monster's mouth wide open, spewing a torrent of black liquid up at him. He was caught dead center in the stream before he could evade, and he screamed as he felt the intense, boiling heat explode across his belly. The redhead slammed into the ground, wheezing, gurgling, and crying. As he clawed his way out of the mud and out of the way of the monster's feet, he thought he felt much lighter. When he tried to stand up, he realized why, and only sobbed harder.

The creature's attack had melted away his lower half, the remains of which could be seen, still dissolving in scattered red and black puddles. What remained of his working parts were starting to fall out of him in a hot, sticky, steaming mess of entrails, bile, and blood. He was only able to catch his breath and cry hysterically as the monster stopped a few feet shy of his destroyed intestines to lap up a half-melted kidney, its one empty eye socket leaking dark fluids in an otherwise perfect row of glistening, green orbs. The pill-shaped pupils of the remaining four eyes locked onto the boy once more, and the creature grinned. It moved forward again, evidently not satisfied.

"Auughh… No more…" Jack wailed, coughing as he tasted hot and coppery blood oozing in his mouth.

"_Stop crying!_" Jong's voice sliced through all the wheezing and bubbling cacophony, "Breathe!"

The boy frantically tried to crawl away from the monster, whose thundering, wet plodding he could hear just behind him. His eyes stung and were nearly blind with tears of horror and pain, what was left of his body burned so furiously he could barely bring himself to move. His intestines trailed behind him, and, as if he were not in enough agony, the beast seized the opportunity to start slurping at the end of one, ingesting it in the same fashion as a child might slurp spaghetti. It snapped off a large bite in between its giant teeth, swallowing audibly.

Jack's bloodcurdling screams rang out once more as he tried to get away, only to be sucked backwards through the mud. Before the Heart of Jong could snap at him once more, the boy felt a giant, slick tendril wrap around his thorax with a loud whipping sound, and he was soon dragged right into the monster's mouth, beating on and struggling against its tongue.

In one last effort to free himself, the Heart's host gasped for air, taking tremendous gulps amid terrified sobs. His last inhale was heard right before the demon amphibian slapped its massive, wet lips together, sealing its suffocating, bleeding meal inside before swallowing him entirely.

"Do not be afraid. Live… and breathe," the Heart of Jong echoed, thumping faintly as it pumped Jack's remaining blood through his shredded arteries, forcing thick fluid to spill out and stick to the sites of injuries and his rent bodily cavities.

Right before he tumbled into the behemoth's stomach to be melted into soup, Jack yelped as a fountain of crimson syrup burst from where his midsection should have been. He skidded to a halt in the creature's throat, gasping and watching, transfixed, as tendrils of varying lengths shot out of his wounds, tangling and intertwining, assuming the shapes of his belly, his limbs, even forming thick, black scales to cover up his rapidly regenerating flesh! Even in the darkness of this place, the Heart's flames illuminated this spectacle just enough for him to see. He was jostled considerably within the gigantic, slimy esophagus as the vile predator began to gag, but Jack could not help but light up with astonishment as the new webs of tissue and vessels only thickened in rough, little bundles, becoming his bones, muscles, organs, skin, and armor.

"Breathe… and live," Jong commanded.

The boy obeyed. He disregarded the now fading pain of his wounds, and stretched himself out until his spine was perpendicular to the walls of the beast's throat, further lodging himself. He sank his claws into the thick, pink insides, making his captor roar and gag harder. At length, even amid the harsh shaking and deafening howls, he was able to scramble back out, raking his thick nails over the frog monster's tongue. As he struggled for purchase in the open maw, he inhaled sharply, further feeding his sentient Wu, who now ignited within his chest once more. The flame practically exploded out of him this time, engulfing his entire body, and giving him the strength to stand and reach upward, violently.

There was an ear-splitting crack, and the monster's bellowing ceased. Jack withdrew his slim arm and tiny, clawed hand from the roof of the demon's mouth, dragging bone and clumps of brain matter with it. But he almost immediately noticed he needed to brace himself as he felt the defeated predator pitching forward, and he shanked his claws into the slimy floor of the mouth.

A muffled crash sounded as the gigantic, bloated body fell into the waters of the marsh, the impact resulting in showers of gore and thick tissue falling from the wound that Jack happened to still be under. He practically swam out of the mouth, coughing and gasping, scraping his way through a bog of blood and filthy swamp water.

The boy collapsed in the red-stained flora, and he felt a soft squeeze in his chest; it was akin to the feeling of a reassuring grasp of one hand on another.

"Well done," said Jong, and the flames flickered and faded until they were but a glow in its host's thorax again.


	7. Chapter 6

**Six**

The first order of business had been dealt with, but it seemed it had been just too easy. Given the unpleasant revelations that had come to light, the young warriors were quickly growing more and more paranoid as they journeyed into the west of Henan Province.

Who had unlocked the vault of the Shen Gong Wu? More importantly, what had this entity wanted with only two of these powerful relics? Why not steal the whole lot? It was clear that someone, or something, had been skulking about long enough to learn how to break in, and – worst of all – had stuck around long enough to follow them after crippling their draconic companion and guard. These unsettling notions tormented the young warriors' minds, clouding their conscious thoughts and slowly draining them of their fortitude with parasitic worry. Every cheerful memory they held, their training in the Temple, soaring across continents atop their dragon, seemed so far away. Everything was under a shroud, mentally… and physically.

They pushed onward, following Raimundo's lead. The road from the Temple and Mount Song had long since dissolved from meticulously set stones to beaten dirt, and led deep into the forests bordering the province. Everywhere the Wu Dai Warriors looked, stone pagodas loomed about them, the flaring, curling corners of their tiled roofs overrun with moss, and their pillars encased in creeping wild greenery. Gradually, the beautiful remains of shrines and road alike gave way to a dense population of towering trees, whose branches arced, twisted, and overlapped, intertwining thickly enough to blot out the light of the afternoon sun. The warriors now walked very closely to one another, taking turns scanning their surroundings lest they had been followed all this way, even into the darkness and treachery of the proverbial "backway."

At length, the dark-haired boy in the lead turned to the others, staring at them listlessly for a moment or two.

"I… think we should take break," he said.

"We're lost already, aren't we?" Kimiko groused, her sapphire eyes seeming to glow with annoyance.

"What? No, we're not!" Raimundo's look of distance abruptly dissipated and turned to a mix of frustration and embarrassment, "Man, we just need a break."

"Even if we are lost, at least anybody who's been pokin' around will have a heck of a time tryin' to keep up," Clay attempted at optimism, smiling weakly, but the gloom in his tired, sunken eyes outweighed any cheer he tried to bring to his friends. When he noticed how wearily – and angrily – the others were looking at him, remorse seemed to completely overtake his rosy, freckled face, "All right, all right," he said, tipping the brim of his hat low over his eyes, "I admit it. I miss 'im… I miss Dojo already. I miss the Silver Manta Ray… I even miss the Shengaroo…"

Raimundo looked taken aback at the mention of the last vehicular Shen Gong Wu, and Kimiko practically snorted. Omi, who had been silent for the majority of the long walk, poked his head out of the canteen that the lone female warrior now held.

"No vessel would have kept me safe from that most nauseating of jostling! We would all be too sick to fight anything that awaited us at our destination!" the watery sprite squeaked. "That is to say, I most definitely miss the Manta Ray more…"

"Ain't nothin' gonna replace Dojo, though," Clay smirked, though he now looked closer to tears than ever.

The whole group went quiet, save for Kimiko, who shuffled over to embrace the shuddering blond. "Any particular reason our alternative rides conveniently don't work?" she almost growled to Raimundo.

"I told you already, I don't know," the boy replied, and he rummaged in one of the rucksacks to retrieve one of the Wu in question. "You remember? We all took turns calling out their names, and look!" he now brandished a large, boomerang-shaped artifact with a long tail protruding from its convex and a shimmering, window-like visor across the front of its concave edge, "I noticed something when I tried to make it work again… Don't tell me you guys don't think this is a little weird." He now handed the Wu to Clay.

The taller boy held the strange relic in both hands, looked at it long and hard, studying its dark, metallic surfaces, and then looked back to his friend. "Well… that's the Manta Ray, all right."

"You don't notice something weird?" Raimundo raised a thick eyebrow at him.

"Gimme that," Kimiko snatched the Wu from her fellow monk with her free hand, while Omi tried to lean out of the canteen she held with the other.

"It's grey…" the tiny dragon said, squinting his cerulean eyes.

"Pfft! It's called the _Silver Manta Ray_ for a reason, Omi; of course, it looks gr—" she fell silent as she struggled to hold the Wu with one hand. "Okay. That's kinda freaky…"

Raimundo waited.

"It's heavy," Kimiko grunted as she handed the Manta Ray back to Clay. "I don't remember this thing weighing as much as my old laptop."

"Man, that ain't right," the blond murmured, now gingerly cradling the Wu in one arm to feel for its full weight.

Upon closer inspection, he noticed what Omi had mentioned; the Ray's normally shimmering, mirror-like surface was flat. It still held its metallic sheen, but it was so dim, so unpolished now, it was as though its former exposure to the elements for centuries had only just caught up with it. It looked almost lifeless, and now felt like dead weight. For good measure, Clay raised the Wu up with both his gloved hands, and tried one more time to activate it, calling out the name in his Southern twang.

"_Silver Manta Ray!_"

On any other day, the Wu would have sprung to life at the command, the magic within allowing it to instantaneously shift into its wide, sleek jet mode. But nothing happened.

Clay sighed, his face drooping once more in despondence, and he handed the inert Ray back to Raimundo.

"Well, no one can say we didn't try," Kimiko's face was pulled into a deep scowl, as though someone had pointed out something painfully obvious. "Now, this is gonna sound a little stupid, but how much longer to this fountain you were talking about, Rai? More accurately, _how much longer without a ride!?_"

The two male monks winced at her rapidly boiling anger, and Omi shrank back into the canteen in her hand.

"Kim, chill!" Raimundo snapped one of his arms out in a whip-like motion, not to slap his friend, but harshly enough that a strong slipstream extinguished the tiny flames creeping from the girl's raven hair. "Dang, I told you we needed a break! It should only take another day, anyway."

Before Kimiko could snap and ignite again, Clay threw his muscular arms around her and hugged her tightly, "Hey… hey… It's okay to be mad. But everybody could use some R 'n' R in a bit."

"As Raimundo might say, you are saying something to us!" Omi gurgled in his plastic confinement.

"That's '_you're tellin' me_,' little man," the brunet monk sighed in exasperation, "C'mon, and help me set up camp already, guys, will ya?"

x

Within the complex that was the Xiaolin Temple, a white stone tower served as a bastion to the vault of the Shen Gong Wu. Standing taller than all its surrounding facilities, and being situated so closely to the hall that had housed the young warriors, it was more than decent for a stakeout. One could see every building very clearly, as well as some of the tidy corridors and chambers through the ornate windows. In fact, at this distance from the main hall, one could make out the form of one of the Temple Elders as he shuffled swiftly out the front doors, heading towards the gardens. It appeared he was trying to make his rounds to speak with one of his students.

_It has to be the one in the fountain again_, the observer surmised.

He leaned very slightly forward in his post, hidden in the shade of the beams in the tower's roofing. It was not a comfortable position, lying on his belly, surrounded by chattering birds, wrapped in a jet black cloak in the summer time, but high up here, he had been invisible to the Warriors and Elders alike for months. No Shroud of Shadows needed here.

Even food and water had not been a problem, now that he had been given the task of keeping the Warriors grounded for surveillance. The problem, in fact, was how he had managed to keep alive while staying stock-still at the highest point on the Temple grounds. The method was nothing short of sickening to him, yet it was so easy to do.

The observer in the tower regarded the ambling Elder below with dejected, deep-set eyes, his orange irises seeming to grow dimmer as he realized that this was his opportunity to do his last job here. He hated this.

He reached into his satchel beside him, and retrieved the one Sheng Gong Wu he carried. Grasping it by its metallic handle and staring into the large, opalescent blue sphere, he reflected on what he knew he had to do if he wished to obtain his prize. Was it worth it?

The creaking of his bones and the burning within his flat stomach answered his question for him. No intake for five days. It was about as long as the Wu Dai Warriors had been gone; it was how long it had been since he had attempted to feed off of one of those relics. Their energy was aged yet vapid… not enough to keep him going. Not enough to stave off this voracious curse. He looked at his free hand, noting the premature wrinkles, the white, curling hairs of his forearms, and the joints that stuck and crackled as though obstructed. And then he looked out to the gardens, silently thanking whatever higher power had kept his vision from failing. He could still see the Elder in the blue robe, but he was now at the edge of the garden, hovering by the fountain. It would only be a matter of moments before he noticed that the disembodied monk was not home.

Just one last job. It would seal the Warriors' fates, and they would be at the mercy of Hannibal, whenever he chose to show himself and fight them. It was not that he wanted to do this… He needed this.

He closed his eyes and called upon his Wu in a tone so low, it did not even disturb the birds that surrounded him.

"_Shard of Lightning_."

There was a sharp blast of light and a burst of energy coursed through the observer's aching limbs. When he opened his eyes, everything had come to a noiseless standstill, as he knew it would. Birds were frozen in mid-leap or mid-flight, and, off in the distance, the Elder in blue was stock still in mid-turn, ready to hustle back to the main hall, his eyes wide in bewilderment.

_Just in time._

The scrawny observer squeezed out of the shadows, rolling himself out sideways so that he landed on all fours on the roof directly to his left. Scrambling across its ruddy tiles with ease, he proceeded towards the south window of the archives. He did not stop moving when he reached the edge of the roof, and, instead, flipped himself over so his bare feet smacked against the wall below. He continued downward, scuttling with his fingertips and toes gripping the wooden accents until he came level with his target.

_Poor thing_, he thought, noting how close the tiny creature was to his passing.

He reached through the window, which had been kept propped open in the heat of the summer, and gently petted the dragon's forehead.

Dojo stared back at him with sunken, enflamed eyes. He appeared petrified, sheerly due to the inconceivable speed the Shard allowed the interloper to move at, but the pain in his reptilian face made the man want to rush away. The dragon's scales were schluffing off in large patches, revealing his emaciated body underneath. His mouth was pulled into a wide snarl, reddened nostrils flared, as though he had been struggling to breathe.

_It's better this way,_ the observer told himself. _It's worth it. Hannibal promised._

"I'm so sorry," he said, and placed both his hands on Dojo's face, silently hoping this last draw would end his pain.

A soft glow started from beneath his palms, and he watched as scant color returned to his flesh, the hair of his arms darkened, and his skin regained its elasticity and usual turgor once more. He noted how easy it was to breathe now, how deeply he could inhale, and how the pain in his joints and limbs was almost gone. When he withdrew his hands to have a better look at them, he noticed how very dim Dojo appeared. His once viridian scales were no longer even green, but drab olive, almost grey, and his eyes were now closed.

The observer felt his heart stop for half a second. That must have done it.

He scooped the dragon's lifeless form up in one arm, and gingerly set him down on the bench below the sill in the archive passageway. He trembled as he took his hands away, and his breath hitched in his throat as he realized how cold Dojo's scales felt against his palms. He practically hissed, desperately trying to mask a sob that welled within him, though he knew no one could hear him when he moved at this speed. In a single, fluid motion, he hauled his rejuvenated but shaking frame up the wall and onto the roof.

Just as the power of the Shard wore off, he cleared the jump back into the rafters of the vault tower. He rolled himself into a quivering ball in his cloak and shrank completely into the darkness, crawling to get as far as he possibly could from the scene that was about to unfold outside. He cursed his newly sharpened hearing as he heard Master Fung rapidly returning from the garden below. It was already too painful.

"Oh, my," said a raspy voice next to him.

The observer practically leapt out of his skin.

"You're looking well. You were so… dried out last I saw you," a bird, much larger than all the others, with fearsome eyes and garish plumage sat at his side.

"Ying, keep your damned voice down," he croaked.

"Why? Nobody will be paying us any mind in, oh… right about now."

The observer covered his ears, not ready for the anguish he was about to hear. There was some muffled shouting, no doubt from the Elder, followed almost immediately by the scuffling of several pairs of shoes all rushing to the same location.

"_Kononocho! Kononocho, please!_"

"That's some chi well spent," Ying ruffled his feathers, and the observer could not help but cringe at how joyful he sounded. "That muppet they call a dragon had that much life left in him to patch you up? Pretty impressive. If I were cursed to never eat again, that's exactly the deal I'd want," it chortled.

"I did what your vile master asked…" the observer shuddered, still covering his ears, "The Warriors will never take to the skies again, you can be sure of that. He can hunt them down and confront them as he wishes."

"Oh?" the demonic avian glanced at him, clacking his long bill. "Funny you should mention that. I was just here to tell you that you are to push them towards _our_ master's home. He's still pulling himself together after his last encounter. Wasn't expecting an army, you know."

The observer was silent for a moment, his auburn eyes wide with disbelief.

"Don't look so surprised now," said Ying, his wicked bill now clearly curling in a sneer, "You want that cure, don't you?"

"Don't mock me."

"Then get a move on," the bird flapped his wings, ready to dive from the rafters. "And, one more thing…"

The observer's face had fallen from shock to despair once more. "What?"

"I'd be a little more careful where I stole my meals from, if I were you. Shen Gong Wu chi doesn't mix well with curses, you know," Ying practically smirked as he flew off, shrinking into a black speck in the high noon sun.

The observer was left to quake in the shadows, quietly sobbing as confusion, terror, and sorrow erupted in the courtyards below.

x

The sun had completely set by the time the young Warriors had found a clearing in the bramble and stinging flora, but with combined efforts, there was no trouble in setting up camp. Clay busied himself stomping the packed ground, launching up small sections of the earth, which he then fashioned into tiny caves for each of his fellow monks, knocking out sections in the middle to allow for space to crawl into. Kimiko, of course, had no problem lighting a fire, which she accomplished by waving her already lit arms over the bundle of branches Raimundo had gathered.

"You are getting very good at that," Omi, who had temporarily been set in a small bowl to enjoy a rest, looked up at his friend, his fluid form reflecting the orange blaze.

"Thanks," she grinned lopsidedly as she extinguished the unearthly flames on her arms of her own accord.

Raimundo now sat down beside them, dropping the firewood to his side, and bringing forth one of his backpacks. "Okay, we need to go over these, make sure they all work." He withdrew the Wu, one by one, handing some to Kimiko, and then waved to Clay to invite him over.

Even by flickering firelight, it was clear that some of the Wu had lost the gloss to their surfaces. The fiery gems that were set in some were sapped of their color or almost black. Soon, the youths had separated the relics that were obviously drained, and were taking turns calling the names of the Wu that still held their respective sparks. At length, it came down to Clay testing out the ones that required being worn or wielded like gauntlets, while Omi desperately tried to solidify his paws enough to hold the Orb of Tornami again.

Kimiko unpacked some of the provisions they had brought along, and promptly tore into a bag of candy. She was about to hand Raimundo a badly bruised apple, when she noticed how flat and sunken his wide, green eyes appeared. He sat hunched forward, resting face against his hands, staring lethargically at the fire.

"Hey…" the girl started. "I shouldn't've yelled earlier… I'm sorry."

"'S'not you, Kim," he said, sniffing, "I just wish none of this had to happen, for us to be like this. It's been so long since we really worked together."

Kimiko practically recoiled in surprise. Her friend had been known for being pouty and a model bad-boy for years, but she had never seen him in such a state.

"I… I wish we still had Dojo. I wish Omi was back in his body so we could be a whole team again. There's a lot I wish that didn't happen, too."

"At least Omi still has _something _to call a body," Raimundo practically snapped, turning to face Kimiko now, "If there's one thing I wish didn't happen, or could even just un-see…" he paused, and even Omi and Clay caught wind of how shaken he was, and set down their Wu to listen.

"You wish you didn't have to see him like that," Kimiko finished for him. "I know."

"Nobody deserves to be in that much pain," Raimundo's mouth quivered, and he ran his hands through his hair tensely, "Not even Jack."

"Especially not Jack," Clay murmured. When his fellow monks looked up at him, he glanced about nervously, and then sat down between the brunet and the raven-head. "We should… pro'lly take a look at the map, just t'see how close we are to the fountain, right?"

"Yeah…" Raimundo nodded glumly as he dragged forth another pack to retrieve some scrolls.

In spite of the atmosphere being so suddenly saturated with grief, the group soon remembered their present dilemma, and resorted to taking turns calculating their journey and keeping watch over their obscure environment. When it was confirmed that it would, indeed, still be another day before reaching the fountain, they paired off, with two curling up in the miniature caves that Clay had built, while the remainder sat back to back to observe the wall of forest that surrounded them.

"What did you mean, 'especially'?" Kimiko asked as she straightened her spine and leaned into Clay's.

Knowing full well what she meant, the sandy-haired boy just huffed and tipped his hat down over his face again. "I hate seein' anybody get beat up that badly. You know that."

"I guess," she muttered, wrapping a thick quilt around the two of them, glaring out into the wilds the whole while.

There was enough weirdness abound in the forest to keep them both occupied for a while longer, but neither of them seemed to be able to keep the awful imagery of just a few days prior out of their head. Every once in a while, one would feel the other shuddering at the creaking of tree branches, twigs snapping in the distance, the howling of hungry animals.

It was going to be a long night.


	8. Chapter 7

**Seven**

In the summer, the verdant meadows of the Japanese countryside were the spitting image of lands of a fairy tale. Wild birds zipped in and out of the trees, whistling and calling cheerily, while giant blue dragonflies hummed lazily in the slow, warm winds. If one were to venture into the woodlands outside of the small towns, one might have soon been lost among the lofty trees and tangling, dense undergrowth. Even so, being lost in so peaceful a forest was not a bad place to be.

Well, it would have been peaceful on any other day but today.

There came a noise not unlike the hum of the insects, growing louder and louder with every passing second. It was like a small engine revving through the air; something so harsh and out of place that it frightened the surrounding wildlife into silence. A figure presently zipped through the trees, too quickly for a bystander to make out clearly, whizzing by like a ragged, black and red comet. It was followed almost immediately by what appeared to be a great green serpent that, if one had a sharp enough eye to glimpse it, seemed to be carrying four more small figures on its back. The pursuit was already at such an alarming speed, small new paths were being carved into the forest. Trees lost their branches to the little black comet, while entire congregations of shrubs were overturned by the emerald monster.

"_Get back here, Spicer, you little thief!_" a female voice shrieked from atop the serpent.

The comet only seemed to proceed faster, and then suddenly rushed upwards through the canopy of leaves, as if in a last ditch effort to shake the beast and its riders. There was a sharp, resounding cracking and a pained yelp from above within the branches. The serpent came to a halt just below where the flying black mass had disappeared, allowing the figures on its back to look up.

Now that it was stuck, one could see that the comet was a boy, no older than fourteen, with a backwards sweep of crimson hair and skin as pale as parchment. He sported a pair of oversized yellow goggles with red cork-screw patterns etched into their surfaces, black pants, heavy boots, fingerless gloves with studded knuckles, and a black trench coat with a long, tattered tail. His face was twisted into a worried grimace, and understandably so, seeing as he was now suspended a short way up among the branches by thin metal arms that seemed to stick out of his back. Both the extra appendages were actually attached to a round, strangely marked backpack, and they both ended in small copter blades. It seemed he had managed to wedge himself in the thicker limbs of a large elm tree.

In spite of this, he gripped fiercely in one hand an odd trinket – a glittering, almond-shaped golden amulet with a caramel red orb set in its center. It was obvious that this was what he had been chased for.

"We see you, freak! C'mon down!" the same voice that had called out a moment before was heard again, and the boy looked down with bewildered, bright ruby eyes.

The voice belonged to a short, slender girl of about thirteen, who stood perched on the upper back of her monstrous steed. She was dressed in an ensemble that implied she might have been color-blind, and wore a black button-up top, a multi-colored tie, Day-Glo green shorts, black and white-striped stockings over fishnets, and tall, strappy black boots. She had even bleached streaks into her ebony hair, and had dyed them in rainbows.

"Freak?" the boy sneered, "Seen a mirror lately, Kimiko?"

"Sure have," the girl smirked. "Too bad every time you look at one, it probably shatters. No wonder you can't get your stupid eyeliner right!"

"Jerk," the trapped redhead spat.

"Whoa, now, Kim," said another voice, this one belonging to a tall but stocky blond fellow in a Stetson hat. He clambered up the serpent's spine next to Kimiko, resting his weight on one elbow against the monster's red and green mane. He was in more of an archetypical rancher's getup –bandanna, vest, boots, and all – and spoke with a Southern drawl. "Don't get 'im too riled up. We still gotta challenge 'im to get the Wu back."

"Should we even use the word 'challenge'?" another one of the riders, a mocha-skinned boy with a mop of wild brown hair asked, "'Challenge' sounds like kind of a joke when anybody like Jack is involved."

The boy in the tree thrashed against his backpack straps, seething as the group below him erupted in boisterous laughter. Even their ride, the emerald Eastern dragon, began to howl until it collapsed, wheezing on the ground.

"Excellent one, Raimundo!" the last rider spoke up, punching the brown-haired one amiably in the side. He was so small, and had a complexion so bizarre, it was easy to mistake him for something other than human. He smiled up at his peers, his tiny eyes and wide mouth standing out starkly against his pale, yellowish face. "As you would say, he _smells bad_ at everything."

"That'd be 'he stinks,'" the girl named Kimiko corrected him, "But, honestly, either way, you're right."

The last remark resulted in a true uproar, sending all four children practically tumbling off their dragon, shrieking in hysterics, while Jack writhed against his harness in the tree, his pale face steadily growing pink with fury. It took a few minutes before they all recuperated, but the youngsters stood up again, still grinning and smirking all around, as one decided to throw down the gauntlet to their rival.

"Yo, Jack!" Raimundo managed to yell amid snickers, "Since everybody else's feet are sore from kickin' your butt all the time, I guess it's my turn to do the honors. Now cough up the Falcon's Eye!"

"Pfft!" the redhead made a noise at him like a deflating balloon, "Bring it on, nerd."

Raimundo was about to say something colorful, but was cut off by a high-pitched squeal from the other lad. Bright light suddenly emanated from the hand that held the artifact in question, and Jack was forced to release the glittering item as it pushed itself from between his fingers, flew from him and was sent sailing upwards into the canopy, as if pulled by a magnet. It continued to glow, brighter and brighter, and eventually halted somewhere high in the leafy heights, floating as it shined down on both the squabbling youngsters. Without wasting another moment, Raimundo barked to his still suspended opponent.

"Jack, I challenge you to a Xiaolin showdown!"

The other children were already cheering him on.

"Fine." Clearly wishing the whole ordeal to be over with already, Jack scowled. "I accept. What's the game?"

The brunet in the hoodie quickly scanned the surrounding woods, and then looked upwards to where the Eye hovered.

"King of the Jungle! Whoever gets to those top branches first wins."

"Easy… I wager the Lotus Twister," the pale boy reached into one of his pockets and retrieved another bizarre-looking object – a crystalline carving of a plant with five fat, white petals and a vivid green corkscrew of a stem that was thick enough to be held like a door handle.

"The Mantis Flip Coin," Raimundo grinned, brandishing a small coppery disk with red markings.

Amid their declaration of their duel to begin, the youngsters felt the ground begin to rattle and shake. The trees that surrounded the group shot upward, growing taller, the canopy and the Eye rising higher and higher until the children and their dragon felt as though they were at the bottom of the deepest well. Branches now burst forth in a flurry, scattering splinters and bark, and forming a massive, spiraling double-helix of wooden spikes with giant gaps between the rungs. The limbs of the elm that held Jack presently released him, writhing and picking his copter blades from out of their bark as though they were prehensile tendrils. With a screech, he was sent hurdling down through clumps of leaves and spider webs to join his rival on the forest floor, being spared from breaking anything by one last branch that lashed around his middle and set him upside down in the grass.

Meanwhile, the others, who were evidently non-contenders, were whisked away on the back of the dragon to a safer distance. The huge serpent wound itself up one of the considerably smaller trees, one that had clearly not been affected by the magic that had caused the environment to change so abruptly. As it deposited the young ones into the branches, it rapidly changed its appearance, shrinking until it was but the size and approximate length of the average wild snake. Despite its drastic alteration now, the two boys below heard the dragon calling out in a startlingly booming male voice:

"_Ready… Begin!_"

Without a moment's hesitation, Raimundo launched himself into the air. It was an impressive jump enough, making a good display of what training he must have endured, but it was quickly compounded by the artifact he carried with him.

"Mantis Flip Coin!" he used his thumb to flick the tiny plate of metal in mid-leap, and he was sent upwards to the first level of branches, tumbling head over heels so quickly that he became a blur.

Jack's follow-up was a bit more stomach-churning.

"Lotus Twister!" he barked, his arm outstretched as he held the shimmering, carved bloom aloft. At first, it seemed that his upward reaching arm looked just a little too long for his short, slim body. And then it became glaringly obvious.

His arms and legs were suddenly liberated of the laws of conservation of mass, and began to stretch as he willed himself upward after his opponent. They retained their relative thickness, but became much like vines of a creeping plant, looping and bending seemingly at random before allowing the boy good purchase on the branches above. It was not long before he caught up with Raimundo, snaking his way after him and crawling up over, under, and in between the jutting tree branches in a grotesque display of simply inhuman flexibility.

"Ack!" the other boy very nearly lost his footing at the sight of him, but quickly regained his bearings. "M-Mantis Flip Coin!" he called out, though, this time, he sounded more frantic than determined. He was sent sailing through the air like a doll flung from a medieval catapult, whirling head over heels in a brown, white, and green blur until he landed in the very uppermost limbs of the trees.

He might have smiled as he paused, partly to let his head stop spinning, and partly to listen to the cheers of his teammates from far below – but his enemy was right on top of him! Raimundo sucked in a breath, making a noise that was half a scream, half a growl, and slapped one of Jack's dark, stretchy limbs away from the Falcon's Eye that dangled just out of their mutual reach.

"Back off, Spicer!" he spat, only to receive a swift boot to his bottom, which, amazingly, came from far behind him on the limb he balanced on.

Raimundo was barely able to save himself from taking a nasty tumble, screaming and squeezing his eyes shut as he scrambled to hook his strong arms around the same branch. When he did open his eyes, he immediately wished he had not. Looking around, he realized that his opponent had somehow managed to weave the now insane length of his body and limbs into a nightmarish cat's cradle – thick black and white cords draped, twisted, and curled about the boughs, apparently all the way down to the forest floor.

"Awww, I'm so sorry," Jack crooned wickedly, bringing Raimundo's attention back to his imminent defeat, "It was _your_ turn to kick _my_ butt, wasn't it?"

With his free hand, the redhead reached towards the last of the delicate twigs that guarded the shining Eye, his pale fingers appearing to stretch sickeningly with the rest of his impossibly elongated arm.

"C'mon, Rai!" Kimiko called from below.

"Wrap it up, li'l' buddy!" the blond cowboy's voice could be heard faintly, as well.

Raimundo glanced down at them for a brief moment, dizzied now more than ever from all his magically-aided acrobatics, and from the sheer height he was stuck at. He reeled and inhaled deeply before trying with all his might to haul himself back up on his feet.

"_Mantis Flip Coin!_" he practically shrieked, sending the little talisman flipping out of his fingers and into the air. When he caught it, he hurdled himself towards Jack, whose digits were quite ready to wrap around the Falcon's Eye once more.

He crashed into him headlong, eliciting a pained cry and crunching that was felt more than it was heard. While Jack's twisted upper body was still being sent reeling away, Raimundo took the opportunity to use him as a stretchy springboard, and performed one last flip, digging his sneakered feet into where the redhead's belly should have been.

His rough, tan fingers grasped the metal body of the Eye, and there was a nearly blinding burst of radiance, forcing both boys to squeeze their eyes shut. The Showdown was over.

When the contenders opened their eyes again, they could see that everything was back to where it had been only a few minutes prior. Jack was even still stuck in the elm, dangling in the harness of his now useless contraption. He was admittedly more scraped up now, however, with his fiery hair sticking out in all directions, his goggles cracked and crookedly strapped to his head, the sleeves of his coat torn, and with one of his eyes blacked almost completely shut. He whimpered, realizing that he had lost not only the Falcon's Eye, but the Lotus Twister, as well. Both were now held by Raimundo, who was grinning from ear to ear, surrounded by his overjoyed peers, being hugged and patted. Even the shifting dragon had curled around him and was ruffling his brown hair diminutively in congratulations.

"_That_ was awesome!" Kimiko embraced her friend.

"Awesome?!" Jack cried out indignantly from above, "There's nothing awesome about how _unfair_ that was! You got a head start!"

Everyone seemed to quiet down momentarily, eyes fixed on the pathetic spectacle. It was not long before the children all burst into a fit of giggles at their rival once more.

"Think we should help 'im down?" the one blond fellow glanced at his teammates.

"Clay, on any other day, I'd actually have to say no…" Raimundo began, smiling and looking over the artifacts he held in his arms as he stepped away from his comrades and towards the redhead, "But, sure. Let's give our buddy Jack a hand… _Lotus Twister!_"

Jack shrieked, vermilion eyes wide in horror as he watched Raimundo's now enchanted arm snaking towards him with the velocity, force, and even the motions of a garden hose on full blast. There came a little clicking noise as a set of stretchy, tan fingers unsnapped the lad's harness, and everyone else watched, dumbfounded, as the boy tumbled to the ground, landing with a disgusting snap on his left arm against the gnarled roots of the elm.

Everything went silent, save for the distant hum of insects, and the soft sounds of some ragged breathing and sniffling. In turn, everyone looked at Raimundo, who still smiled smugly.

"What?" he asked.

"You cannot be serious…" the smallest of the boys looked up at him. "You have just—"

The boy named Clay abruptly cut in, shoving Raimundo down in the dirt with both hands, sending his glimmering loot flying.

"Just because he gives us a rough time don't mean ya need to act like the south end of a mule!" he shouted, and everyone was taken aback. "Apologize!"

"Wh-wha?" Raimundo looked up at him, "Clay, knock it off! I was just havin' fun! Spur of the moment!"

The scuffle was presently interrupted by a far more unpleasant noise, and Clay practically kicked the brunet boy out of the way as he rushed over to his felled enemy.

"Hey… Easy, li'l' buddy," the towering blond tried to console the other youngster, who was audibly sobbing in pain. When Jack's left arm came into view, everyone but Clay turned away.

"Oof…" the little green dragon made a noise in his throat that suggested he was soon to regurgitate his last meal, "Yep, I'm done. Human arms are definitely not supposed to be shaped like that. We're gonna be… over here when you guys are done."

He slithered away on his belly, and the children followed after him, scraping up their won artifacts and still wincing at the mere sound of their rival crying.

Jack swore and writhed, streams running down his face as Clay drew a switchblade from one of the pockets in his jeans. The larger boy proceeded to cut a long slit in Jack's coat sleeve, trying to get a better look at his upper arm. He exhaled sharply, and gingerly thumbed at the bruised, swollen flesh when he did see it.

"Clean break," he muttered, and he began to untie the red bandanna that adorned his neck.

"I-It's-s broken?" Jack stuttered. His face was a mess of scratches, bruises, smeared black makeup, and tears.

"Oh, yeah," Clay replied, now gathering a few thick twigs that were scattered in the grass around them. "You're gonna be all right."

The smaller, slimmer boy could not help but shed a few more tears as his aid held his left arm with both hands, feeling for the site of the fracture once more.

"Clay, no!" he whined, only to be shushed by the other boy.

"Take it easy, pardner… Bite down on this," Clay instructed, removing one of his heavy, leather gloves. He rolled it into a ball before sticking it into Jack's quivering mouth. "Don't hate me for this. M'daddy used to do this for me all the time back home. Ya wouldn't believe the things I used to fall off of…"

Muffled screaming and kicking ensued as the blond gripped his rival's wounded limb, firmly but gently, pushing in alternating directions with both hands. At length, a tiny _snick_ was heard, and Clay released the sobbing mess of a lad from his hold.

"Just one more thing, okay, Jack?"

All the boy could manage was a strangled squeak, spitting out the glove and making a meager attempt to sit up straight with the help of his good arm. He watched as the blond began to snap the wooden debris he had gathered until they were all roughly the same size.

"The bone's back together where it should be, but we gotta make sure it stays that way," Clay looked at him empathetically with soft, cyan eyes. He proceeded to bundle the sticks around Jack's arm, fastening them tightly with his bandanna.

"Unh!" the redhead cried out once more, barely able to choke back another sob from the agony. "Why?"

"I just said why, buck-o, ya gotta keep your arm still so—"

"No, n-not that… Why are you being so nice to me?"

Clay was silent for a moment, his brows furrowing as he tried to think of a good answer.

"After everything I do to you guys…" Jack stared back at him piteously with his blacked eye and runny nose.

He did start to cry again now, but this time, curled up so that Clay would not have to see how badly his tears were ruining his face. But he suddenly felt something warm enveloping him, like a heavy blanket being thrown over his shoulders. He jumped a bit in surprise, nearly whacking his bandaged arm against the other boy, who hugged him softly. Jack instinctively flinched as Clay brought a gloved hand to his face, realigning his goggles on his forehead, and even wiping away his smeared eyeliner.

"Jack… I'll be honest. You can be as slippery as a sidewinder, sometimes, but I don't think ya deserve to be hurt… Not like this," Clay embraced him, cautious not to hurt his unlikely comrade's already wounded limb. "You'd better come back to the Temple with us. We can patch you up a li'l' better there."

"Oh-okay…" Jack stammered, struggling to get his breathing under control as he felt Clay hug him a little tighter before helping him back to his feet.

"C'mon. Let's get goin'. Rai still owes you an apology, anyway," the blond boy regarded him with a sweet smile. "Aw, buddy… Why are ya still cryin'?"

x

Jack sobbed in his throat, awakening as he did. He tried to sit up, but wound up smacking his head against the inside of the hollowed log he had taken shelter in. He groaned and rolled about, holding his face and muttering curses and growling something to the tune of how he hated mushy business.

"There is no hate to be felt in what I saw…" Came the familiar, rumbling voice of his unwanted travelling companion. Jong's voice seemed to rattle his ribs more than ever before now, and Jack practically scrambled out of the log in sheer surprise at how deafening the Heart's thudding sounded inside of him.

"How many times do I have to tell you? _Stay outta my damn head!_" the flustered redhead screamed.

"It is inevitable," Jong continued, clearly unaffected by the boy's outbursts, "The bond is already beginning to strengthen. We will share all our memories soon enough."

"What?!"

"In spite of my wishes to depart this world, I have been given a new body. You are my new vessel, and we will continue to synchronize… Until we are one."

"Just… shut up and lemme go back to sleep, freak!" Jack spat, "Keep me alive long enough for me to find whoever did this and, believe me, I'll make sure you get your wish."

"You don't mean that, Jack," the Heart said matter-of-factly as its host curled up once more against the rotten, soggy bark of their hideaway.

The youth growled something indiscernible as he pulled the collar of his tattered cloak up over his face, as if retreating into a black cloth shell. He could not help but tremble a bit as he felt the unmistakable sensation of digits combing through his short hair. Long after he had closed his eyes and had drifted back to sleep, he could still feel the petting, as well as the tears slipping down his cheeks. He dreamed of kindness that seemed so far behind, and lost himself in the images of days long past:

He felt his unexpected companion's embrace again, and leaned into his arms as he felt him tending to all his scrapes and bruises, not caring what any passersby thought. He lay cradled in the safety of the temple on Mount Song, so blissfully unaware of the hell that awaited him in the years to come. The only thing that did not belong in this sweet, sweet memory was the sound of the Heart of Jong, its beats reverberating in the very ventricles of Jack's brain, its voice echoing and tainting his dreams.

"Oh, Jack. You could not hate someone if you tried."


	9. Chapter 8

**Eight**

Some hours before the sun rose, the Wu Dai Warriors were on the move again, trudging through the woods in the morning mist whilst hazily scanning the trail both ahead and behind. Kimiko yawned deeply and combed her fingers roughly through her long raven hair, struggling to move her aching legs to keep up with her companions. She had been chosen to bring up the rear for the rest of the trip deep into the forest, not that her fellow monks had to worry about her scampering ahead – it had been painful just to get up after a night with so little sleep. Aches and pains aside, her having the keenest eyesight of the group was a good advantage, but now was necessary for spotting unsavory trekkers who might have been tracking them. She would have to race along while checking the path for anyone, or anything, hiding and creeping from behind.

It did not feel as though three days had already passed since a positively nightmarish defeat, as it remained so vivid in everyone's minds. It was that night alone on which it felt as though an eternity had passed before the Warriors were able to escape the mountains. When they had finally been granted a window of opportunity to flee, devastated and wounded, it had been almost for naught, and the state of things back at the Temple had been frightful. Worse still, Kimiko now realized, there was no going back now that the youths were this far along their way to seeking the help of the fabled Chi Fountain.

She sighed, craning her neck to peer back into the backdrop of the jagged shapes of thickening trees. Nothing. It was no surprise, she thought, given that she had heard noises all night long, but had not seen the wild beasts that they had come from. But now, it was eerily still and calm, and she found herself constantly lagging behind the others, trying to convince herself that what she had heard was not her imagination.

_No way it can be so quiet…_

Not a sound could be heard for some time, not even the hum of insects, nor an occasional rustling of the undergrowth. And yet, the Warriors could sense something fundamentally wrong practically pervading the air. It was not unlike the sensation of being stared at from across a room by a total stranger; it made Kimiko's skin crawl and made her shiver despite the muggy summer heat. If it was not bad enough, being unable to see this suspected creeping creature, it was simply the wonder of how long it had been following them, spying on them, that gripped the girl and her companions with sheer dread.

"Hey, Rai," she began, wiping the beads of cold sweat from her brow, "How much furth—"

There it was again. Groaning, low and throaty, and ending in a sound quite like an old automotive engine dying out, came from behind. Kimiko spun on her heel, instinctively assuming an aggressive stance. The other warriors followed suit – at least, the ones that had feet to stand on – poised and glancing about, with Raimundo nearly dropping the scroll he held as he retrieved a long indigo blade from a scabbard on his hip.

Everyone groaned in exasperation at what they saw. As previously suspected, there was nothing to be found, no matter how hard they squinted at the darkness.

Kimiko huffed, somewhat in anger, but mostly in relief. "'Kay… As I was saying, how much further 'till the Fountain?"

"Shouldn't be long now," the boy replied, sheathing his sword once more, "But we can't keep stoppin' every five seconds!"

"Kim, why dontcha bring up the front for now?" Clay offered, "That way ya can take a li'l' break."

"Wha— I don't need a break!" the girl snapped, "I know what I heard!"

"Clay is right," Omi piped up, bubbling from the canteen that the blond held. "You may have heard noises, indeed, but perhaps you are not quick enough to find their source!"

Kimiko was practically seething.

"What he means is that ya just need a li'l' more shut-eye so you can keep up the watch later," Clay put the lid on the canteen, despite Omi's protest. "Here," he said to Kimiko, and dropped down on one knee, "Hop on."

The young woman was embarrassed at the gesture, at first, and she blushed deeply. But she soon forgot her frustration, considering how she was getting rather sick of not being able to locate their supposed stalkers, and she climbed onto the lad's back.

"Pssh… Get a room," Raimundo snorted as they all began to move on again.

The monks continued on for some time, with Kimiko sleeping soundly, clinging to Clay's back, and with Raimundo checking the map cautiously to guide them through the felled trees and hellish underbrush. It was not long before the sun set again, and the nighttime forest became considerably harder to navigate. The dead silence of the woods slowly gave way to the moaning that everyone had heard before, though it was mixed with a quickly rising cacophony of nocturnal insects and calls of hungry animals. Raimundo fished for a flashlight in his backpack, and, upon flicking it on, revealed that the groaning sounds stemmed from something far less frightening than what the Warriors had expected.

"Kim! Kimiko!" Clay gently shook his friend awake by swaying from side to side, "Look. It's just the trees."

The girl glanced upward with hazy blue eyes, noticing now the way the looming branches swayed and creaked. Evidently, there was a soft current of wind moving through the upper half of the forest that no one else seemed to detect. The air remained as humid and hot as ever in spite of the daylight being long gone. Kimiko did not think on it too much, as her exhaustion overtook her, and she soon fell asleep on her friend's shoulders again.

Omi could be heard bubbling faintly within his plastic confines, no doubt very concerned about the intimidating, beastly noises from outside in general. Before Clay could undo the lid to talk to him, Raimundo grasped him by the hand, effectively stopping him dead in his tracks.

"No need," the brunet intoned.

"Wh— Rai, I think he just wants to know what's goin' on," Clay started, but the other boy was already moving ahead.

"We're close now. Don't worry about the noises. None of it's gonna matter in just a little bit…" Raimundo continued, occasionally swiveling his light back to Clay to ensure that he was still following him. "We have to keep moving! Do you wanna save Dojo or not?"

"Why are ya so sure that this is th'place to go?" the blond panted. He kept up his pace surprisingly well in spite of the extra weight he cradled on his back, but he was starting to overheat. It did not help that his comrade just reminded him of the added pressure.

There was definitely no breeze to be felt, in spite of the clear motions of the boughs above. The sounds of creaking and rustling grew louder and more frequent, even with the lack of wind, and the trees seemed to alternately be tipping towards the Warriors and lashing back. Some of the limbs were beginning to move in alarmingly fast crack-the-whip motions, gradually becoming stronger and stronger the faster Raimundo raced down the barely visible path. To make things even stranger, Clay noticed, the motions of the branches started to converge just ahead of the leader of the group. They rumbled and swayed, and swished in an almost encouraging gesture, despite how frantic their motions were.

Kimiko now stirred awake in the growing racket, sapphire eyes widening in surprise, while Omi anxiously gurgled and yelped in an attempt to speak to his friends.

"What the… Dude, _I told you_ I heard something freaky!" the female warrior hissed.

"I-I know!" Clay stammered as he started to lose his footing in the frantic chase after their friend.

"Almost there!" Raimundo yelled from far ahead, seeming to disappear into the darkness, save for the mote of artificial light that shone from his torch.

"Rai! Rai, get back here!" Kimiko screamed amid the chaos.

Loose leaves showered down upon the duo and their sprite in a bottle, and Clay had to duck and weave through the low-hanging boughs that appeared to swoop down from the shadowy canopy to block them. Animals howled in the distance, scraping and snapping echoed all around them, and the Warriors scrambled to find their leader in the dark. When they finally spotted the beam of the flashlight again, it was only for a brief second.

Kimiko leapt from Clay's back, seeming to stave off sleep with the adrenaline rush of panic. "_Raimundo! Come back!_"

"Kim!" the blond lad practically scrambled after her, narrowly avoiding a branch that now shot horizontally in front of them at waist-level.

The two of them ducked, sliding down the path on their sides, only to be blocked once more by a wall of boughs, vines, and leaves. The foliage wrapped about the surrounding trees in the fashion of a spider's web, though it was much thicker, with the individual cords and twigs that made it up writhing as though they had minds of their own. With all the noise and the shaking and twisting, it almost seemed as though whatever force that guided this nightmarish flora was… struggling. It looked like it was struggling to hold its shape. Even as they ran towards it, it lost a few vines, which snapped a sagged, leaving holes in the barricade.

"Whoa… that ain't good," Clay shuddered, straining to get to his feet despite how tired he was. "Looks like it ain't holdin' down the fort very well, though…"

He reached into his backpack, and drew out his weapon – an over-sized boomerang that appeared to be carved from the blackest of onyx. The boy's body lurched a bit as he wielded the stony artifact, but he was able to swing it and successfully knock more branches loose. The structure before him audibly moaned and shook upon receiving the strike.

"Hang in there!" Kimiko yelled over the clamor to reassure him, and she, too, retrieved a weapon.

Even in the murky darkness, the wand was visible, glowing a vivid orange at its hilt where the young woman held it, and shining brightly at its tip. When she swung it, a trail of glimmering sparks was left in its wake… and then the wall of branches ignited. Everything before them was rapidly consumed in a blistering blaze, only adding to their misery of being stuck in the suffocating humidity, but now throwing in the terror of being trapped in a forest fire.

"Kimiko!" Clay cried out desperately, "What're ya thinkin'?"

Before the girl could come up with something colorful to shout back, the flaming cords and vines let out a horrible, animalistic screeching. The Warriors looked up to watch as the mass of wriggling, blackening tendrils retreated, some coiling or crumbling, while others wrapped around one another to smother the flames from Kimiko's weapon. Before long, the wall of vegetation was gone, and all that was left was a gaping maw in a tunnel of trees, leading into smoky, ink-black darkness.

"Well… I guess that works," Clay looked abashed for a moment, but he quickly called out to his missing friend, "_Rai!_ You in there, buddy?"

"_Raimundo! Get outta there!_" Kimiko screamed, and then shuddered.

The world had gone strangely quiet again. The creaking of the branches was gone, the animals had stopped their clamoring… Even Omi had stopped struggling in the canteen to listen for signs that his companions had been reunited and that they had arrived at their destination.

Presently, amid the silence, a resounding splash was heard, coming from within the shady depths ahead. Ordinarily, the sound would not have frightened the Warriors, but it was so sudden, and it clued them in that they may have arrived, after all. They practically leapt out of their skin, and Omi loosed a strangled, muffled cry of terror, but the abrupt noise did not frighten Kimiko and Clay enough to keep them from pursuing Raimundo. They now rushed into the darkness, not caring how clearly hostile and truly alive the forest was – there was no telling if this was actually the Fountain of Chi that had made the noise, and there was no indication that their missing monk was still in the black confines of the shadows, or if he had gone head over heels into a body of water without a Shen Gong Wu to save him. They were willing to fight and save him, no matter the cost.

"Hang on, buddy! We're not lettin' you get beat to hell this time," Clay called out to him.

No answer.

The blond and the raven-head came to a dead stop in a very small clearing after just a few more bounding strides, their gear still clanking and swaying with the momentum. The pair of warriors stood poised, eyes darting, hearts pounding, their breathing ragged and noisy, their bodies taut but trembling and dripping with perspiration. It was much hotter in here than it was out among the trees in at least semi-darkness, and the two of them could feel occasional dripping of water on their backs and heads. The plastic jar on Clay's backpack suddenly rattled violently as they tried to search the clearing; Omi was desperately trying to say something.

"N-n-not now sprout!" Clay tried to hush the watery sprite, patting the bottle reassuringly. "'S'not safe…" His voice had fallen to a harsh whisper, now that he realized just how alone and in the dark they all were.

Kimiko simply bit her lip, scuttling about as she tried to search for where her comrade might have fallen. At length, she made the risky decision of using her wand as a torch, and, before either of her fellow Warriors could protest, she had conjured a small, shimmering, white flame at the apex of her weapon, and had illuminated their surroundings.

"R-Rai? You still in here?" she called, not worrying if her voice woke up every living monster in the forest.

Looking about with the new light source, she noticed that the foliage was considerably thicker in here than on the rest of the forest floor, and she soon realized why she and her comrade could not stop sweating. The brambles and tendrils that surrounded them apparently formed a dome, almost gazebo-like in structure, with a canopy of heavy moss and thorny vines. The water that dripped onto them came from above, and seemed to be due to the heavy condensation in the air.

"'S like bein' in a sauna," Clay muttered, narrowly avoiding tripping over roots and bushes as he searched about.

"So where's the pool?" Kimiko began nervously. Her blue eyes suddenly fell as her wand illuminated something.

She and the blond raced over to the object in question, and they inhaled sharply as they realized what it was. There lay Raimundo's backpack, formerly brimming with the magical Wu. It had been overturned and emptied, its contents evidently having been lost in the depths of something that the monks now noticed was a frighteningly deep well. The stones that surrounded the small, circular opening to the pit looked much older than the ones that had made of the pagodas they had seen on their way into this infernal place, and they had worn characters carved into their grey surfaces, all of them far too complicated for the youngsters to read. As for the well, itself, its waters glistened with tiny mineral flecks, which shone with a light that gave no light, fading into a downward corkscrew of stone and aqua shades. It was neither of these qualities that struck the two Warriors so deeply, however. When Kimiko held her wand over the well to get a better look and assess its depth, she and Clay nearly cried out in terror. Floating, suspended in the sparkling, crystal-clear blue water, were the Wu. Their blackened, empty, lifeless husks were slowly being sucked down to the bottom of the watery tunnel, wherever it went.

"Bu… but… We're supposed to be near the Fountain of Chi…" Kimiko sounded close to tears, "_Wh-why is their chi gone?_... Uh.. _WAAAUGH!_"

The answer did not come. Instead, the girl cried out as she felt her back abruptly erupt in agony. Someone had swiftly driven something into her spine with a loud crunch, and she found herself without balance, lurching right into the well to join the lost Shen Gong Wu.

Even the protective Clay could not save the ebony-haired monk as she tumbled in with a splash, and, an instant after she was submerged, everything seemed to proceed at a snail's pace. She was sure she heard her friend scream her name frantically, right before being cut off – not doubt by the same being who had pushed her in. She thought she remembered struggling and trying to swim, but her body simply would not move, let alone allow her to wave her devastating wand to destroy her attacker. She felt so… tired. She was tired again. Exhausted. Simply devoid of energy. She made an imprecise attempt to hold her breath, but she could not, and she physically felt the dulled agony of her lungs filling with the viscous, cursed water, collapsing delicate tissue, and further sealing her fate. Muffled screams and sounds of a battle erupted just above her, vaguely reverberating off the walls as she gracefully drifted down, down, down. Kimiko did not even have the energy to shut her eyes as the Chi Fountain sucked the last of her life from her, and her bottomless, cerulean irises faded to a vacant, flat grey.

The Wu Dai Warrior of Fire departed the realm of the living with a look of horror etched into her otherwise beautiful, youthful face. Her pupils constricted, and her body became permanently contorted in the almost gelatinous, shimmering depths. The well had ceased to drag her down, and she had stopped, upside-down, a mere inch away from what looked like the remains of a decaying young man, his flesh long since dissolved in the deadly waters. Coal-black Wu showered down in slow motion, passing by and eventually raining down upon the graveyard below – an army of bleached, crystallized bones, and swollen, slowly melting corpses that stretched into the dark.

x

It had been difficult to fight without a light source, but he had needed the element of surprise – and it had certainly served him well. Though he was rather beaten and cut up, he was grateful to still possess all his limbs and most of his bodily fluids. Raimundo smiled as he knelt to pluck Omi in his plastic confines from Clay's travelling gear, and he wiped his sword clean of the still steaming, caramel-red blood on his former companion's clothes.

_Too bad…_ he thought.

Clay had been quite the fighter, and his weapon, the Meteorang, had done more than leave little bumps and bruises. Even down on the ground, vermillion fluids spewing from his nose, mouth, and a dismembered stump, and with his remaining, thick muscle-bound arm reaching for his Wu Dai Weapon, the cowboy still looked heroic. He had refused to give up. It was too bad he just would not see Raimundo's way.

There was a tiny gurgling, and the brunet monk practically leapt a foot into the air. He watched as Clay's blue eyes flicked open and his one hand continued to grapple one last time for the glistening, black implement that lay just out of his reach. Raimundo brought his foot down on the boy's head, resulting in a loud, grating crunch, but Clay continued to writhe and reach for the mighty boomerang. He stomped on him again… and again, and again. The blond's tongue was severed crudely, teeth went everywhere, blood vessels within his eyes burst, right before the eyes themselves were turned to soup. At last, the boy expired, and his nervous system seized up momentarily, his remaining limbs twisting and trembling violently before going completely still.

Raimundo loosed a rattling sigh, and wiped the sweat from his face, smearing his mocha complexion with deep red as he did. _So much for making it quick and clean._

He glanced down at the water bottle he had gleaned from his comrades, remembering how Omi had healed him not so long ago after their tangle with the nightmare Hannibal. He debated on whether or not it was a good idea to open it and have his companion patch him up, and he thoughtfully thumbed at the lid. The treacherous lad thought better of it as he felt the plastic canteen rattle and shake, clearly indicating the water dragon's wrath. He already knew what he had done.

Raimundo gave a low chuckle. But Omi would have to get used to this sort of thing. He was his friend, and he was practically required to help him. He was about to say something just to make his point to the sprite in the bottle, when one other figure made its way onto the remains of the bloody battle scene.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she said in a voice that was all too soothing.

Her footsteps were nearly silent, and the brunet might not have known she was there at all had she not literally forced the forest's dark foliage out of her way. Sentient plant-life cried out in suffering as the figure raised her hands and ominously waved her fingers. Amid the inky blackness, Raimundo could easily see the woman's eyes. They were a vivid, luminous, lime green, were pupil-less and were marked with patterns that seemed to echo the spiraling depths of the pool into which he had sent his friend. When she stepped further from the darkness, one could see the boy's associate was a tall, tan, full-figured woman with cascading, wine-red hair, fierce features, pointed teeth and elven ears. She was dressed in a trailing, but form-fitting gown that appeared to be drawn from the very shade and plant-life that surrounded her, its edges sticking and blending oddly with everything her shadow touched, and its more tangible parts covering her only in patches. When the monk shuddered at her approach, she smiled, her plum lips parting and revealing shimmering, pointed teeth.

"As I was saying," the woman continued, "I wouldn't bother trying to get him to heal you. He already knows."

"I-I-I wasn't gonna…" Raimundo stammered, clutching the wriggling canteen with both hands.

"Might I also remind you that I specifically asked you persuade our friends, the Xiaolin Warriors, to merge with the Heylin? I asked for you to destroy their weapons in case they tried anything funny. I never said for you to destroy _them._"

"Look, Wuya! They wouldn't'a listened to me! Y-you know that!" Raimundo was sweating again. He was having a rather difficult time clinging to Omi's confines now.

He dropped it anyway, as his outburst earned him a swift strike to the face. The woman, Wuya, had commanded a branch to slap him, and little crimson droplets blossomed out of a cut on the boy's left cheek.

"Speak out of line again, and you can join your girlfriend in the portal," the sorceress said, her words oozing with venom, and her green eyes flashing. "Don't think that I haven't already gotten a replacement figured out, stupid boy. I've waited a little too long to deal with Hannibal for this to go awry."

"B-but… re-replaced?" the monk stammered.

Wuya flicked one of her arms in a crack-the-whip motion, and another branch met its mark with Raimundo's head. A resounding crack indicated a decent fracture of the boy's skull, and his tan face quickly grew purple with deep bruising. He was sent spinning a short distance, and, when he did come to a stop, he fell on all fours, gasping and wheezing.

"I thought you would have learned some gratitude by now, little King of the World… I nearly had to beat this heinous forest into submission – like so many servants – and make a silly façade for your friends to fight through to give you enough time to destroy the Wu. You have disappointed me, and, yes, you are being replaced, and by the little one who set me free a decade ago, no less."

For a moment, Raimundo was at a loss for words, but he managed a squeak.

"_Spicer?_"

"Indeed," Wuya smirked, "You'd be surprised at how the little guy shaped up when I tried a new tactic. A most… unholy one."

"Wha-what… whaddya mean?" the boy cried in outrage despite his pain, "Jack Spicer… isn't just a weakling, and a sorry excuse for a Heylin Warrior… He's dead!"

"Was," the sorceress replied, "_Was_ dead."

"Y-ya have any idea what I went through? Do you?!" the seething brunet screamed, reaching for his sword, "I had to woo these idiots, drag 'em into the most dangerous part o' your territory, and risked my ass just t'get demoted! You're _crazy_ if you think you're gonna get away with this one! I destroyed the Xiaolin Warriors for you, you hear me? You crazy b—"

Raimundo was abruptly flipped upside down, seized up by two writhing tendrils grasping both his ankles, his already broken face briefly connecting with the ground as he was situated. At Wuya's silent command, the demonic flora suspended the boy in the air and wrenched his legs apart with a stomach-churning snap.

Tears rained down upon the grinning Heylin witch as she retrieved the boy's sword and the canteen imprisoning Omi, and she casually strode towards the pool to sit down and watch.

"I'm sorry! _I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I take it back!_" Raimundo cried, begging for mercy, "No more! _Stop it! Please!_"

Wuya paid him no heed. With a wave of her hand, she both dismissed his pleading for forgiveness, and commanded the surrounding greenery to do away with the rotten lad. They did so, and with grim efficiency. The deceitful Warrior's screams did not cease until most of his fluids painted the forest floor, and, by the time the vines had finally separated his legs from his pelvis, much of him was strung up on the brambles below, and the air reeked of copper and bile.

Seeing that one thorn in her side had been removed, at last, Wuya smiled again, striding over the well that had claimed Kimiko only moments ago. First, she dropped Raimundo's sword in, watching as its essence was instantly depleted – its glimmer dissipated, leaving its surface as black as coal. And then, she removed the lid from Omi's confines. There was a pained scream as the water dragon's liquid body met with the surface of the fountain, the shimmering nine dots of his face briefly shining radiantly as he called upon all his strength to save himself, and then the remaining Wu Dai Warrior was silent again. He was no more.

The red-headed sorceress gazed into the freakish depths now, savoring her stepping-stone of a victory as she cast aside the canteen. It certainly had been tricky work getting that stupid Warrior of the Wind to work in her favor once more, but after seeing him scramble to save face, and after seeing how his ego was so crushed at being defeated by a mutual enemy… Well, it was almost too perfect of an opportunity to pass up. She had simply had to pay him and that wretched Temple a visit. However, she thought, it had seemed a little _too_ convenient that everyone was preoccupied with tending to that silly, little pet of a dragon.

_Some overworked Elder must've tampered with the whelp's kibble_, Wuya chuckled, not concerned enough to dwell on that for long.

"Good-bye, Xiaolin Warriors," she said aloud in a voice like velvet, running her long-nailed fingers against the stones of the well, "I suppose my little henchman and I were truly meant to be tangled from the start. Maybe he and I can shape up this sorry Heylin clan at long last."


End file.
